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NEW YORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

82 CLIFF STREET. 



THE 



NILE BOAT: 



OR, GLIMPSES OF 



THE LAND OF EGYPT 



BY 



W. H. BARTLETT 



AUTHOR OF 'FORTV DAYS IN THE DESERT. 



NEW YORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS. 



1851 



J]T53 



TRANSFER 

SEP 141944 
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PREFACE 



To add anotlier book on Egypt to the number that have ah-eady 
appeared, may ahuost appear like a piece of presumption. But it 
should be remarked, that beside the army of erudite ' savans' who have 
enlisted themselves in the study of its antiquities, there has always 
been a flying corps of light-armed skirmishers, who, going lightly over 
the ground, busy themselves chiefly with its picturesque aspect ; who 
aim at giving lively impressions of actual sights, and at thus cre- 
ating an interest which may lead the reader to a further investigation 
of the subject. This class of writers can, of course, even when suc- 
cessful in their object, claim but a very humble rank. The modicum 
of historical and archaeological lore with which they are accustomed 
to season their narratives must, naturally, be borrowed from others ; 
all the merit that falls to them being the faithful description of what 
they have themselves beheld. Of such slight texture is the composi- 
tion of the present volume. The author had, indeed, entirely re- 
nounced the idea of preparing one, and was only encouraged to do so 
by the kind reception of a recent production of the same stamp, which 
aimed at producing distinctness of impressions by the combination of 
the pencil and the pen. 



3 



While disclaiming for the text of his book any pretensions to 
originality, the writer is anxious to say that this is not the case with 
the illustrations, of which the whole were drawn upon the spot, many 
of them with the Camera Lucida. He has endeavored to present, 
within small compass, as much variety as possible, displaying the 
principal monuments of the earlier or Pharaonic monuments, as at 
Thebes ; the later Ptolemaic style, as at Edfou and Philte ; with some 
of the most beautiful specimens of the Arabian, at Cairo. The sites 
of Alexandria and Thebes, with their principal ruins, are, it is hoped, 



IV 



PREFACE. 



rendered distinct and intelligible. Something, too, is attempted of 
the characteristic scenery of the river, and something of modern man- 
ners and customs. The figm-es were all put in from actual sketches, 
often exactly as they stand. In short, the book, though far from 
giving an adequate idea of Egyptian scenery and monuments, which 
is indeed impossible on the scale, so ftxr as it goes, may claim to be a 
correct one, at least in intention and endeavor. 

The authorities quoted are generally named, but the author can not 
omit to acknowledge his especial obligations to the kindness of Mr. 
Samuel Sharpe, the historian of Egypt. The interest taken by that 
gentleman in every attempt to popularize the fovorite subject of his 
studies, has led him, not only to present the writer with a brief in- 
troduction, but also to allow the literal quotation of such portions of 
his volume as happened to bear upon the subject described, giving 
thereby a permanent utility and value to what would otherwise be 
trivial and fugitive. Thus, the entire historical sketch of Thebes, 
prefixed to the account of its ruins, is extracted in full from his 
valuable " History of Egypt." 



Finally, should any one, by glancing over these pages, be tempted 
to think of visiting the country they describe, let him not suppose it 
is intended to usurp the functions of a guide bookj-beyond pointing 
out the prominent objects of interest. For the manners and customs 
of Ancient Egypt, and a detailed description of the existing monu- 
ments, the works of Sir Gardner Wilkinson are indispensable; as are 
those of Lane for the modern state of Egypt. These are not the 
hasty sketches of a passing tourist, but the result of years of patient 
and learned investigation ; and no one should think of going to Egypt 
without them ; nor, we must say in addition, without the history 
already referred to. !More compact and portable editions than the 
present of these invaluable volumes would, however, be a boon to the 
traveler, by whom, more than any one else, " a great book" is felt 
to be " a great evil." 



ILLUSTRATIOiNS. 




ENGRAVINGS. 




Frontispiece. Karxak — Grand Hall, 


To face page 


Title-page. Departure of the Kangia from Old Cairo. 




Map of Egypt ....... 


.11 


Panorama of Alexandria ...... 


24 


Street in Cairo ...... 


. ^ . 51 


The Bazaar ........ 


55 


View from the Citadel ..... 


. 60 


Mosque of Sultan Hassan ...... 


64 


Mosque of El Azhar ...... 


. 66 


Tombs of the Memlook Sultans ..... 


10 


Tomb of Sultan Kaitbay ..... 


. 72 


Interior of a House at Cairo ..... 


74 


Ferry at Ghizeh ...... 


. 92 


The Sphynx ....... 


94 


The Pyramids ....... 


. 100 


The Slave-Boat ....... 


132 


The Shadoof ....... 


. 136 


Map of Thebes ....... 


161 


Valley of the Tombs of the Kings .... 


. 162 


Hall of Beauty ....... 


164 


Plain of Thebes ...... 


. 169 


Medeenet Habou ....... 


172 


Colossal Stati/e — Memnonium ..... 


. 175 


The Colossi ....... 


179 


Luxor from the Water ..... 


. 186 


Propylon of Luxor ....... 


187 


Approach to Thebes ...... 


. 189 


Karnak — 1st Court ...... 


190 


Retrospective View of the Grand Hall . 


. 195 


Temple of Edfou ....... 


199 


Frontier of Egypt ...... 


. 205 


Approach to Phil.e ...... 


209 


Pharaoh's Bed — Phil.*: ..... 


. 210 


View from Phil^ ....... 


212 


Temple of Abusimbal ...... 


. 215 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



WOOD-CUTS. 



Landing in Egypt . 
Noon in a Nile-Boat 

WaTEE- WHEEL ON THE LoWER NiLE 

Mosque of Tooloon 

Bab Zooayleh 

Heliopolis 

Section of the Pyramid 

Dancing-girls . 

Tomb of Beni Hassan 

Crocodile 

Temple of Dendera 

Tablet at Beirout 

Doctrine' of the Judgment 

Plan of the Memnoxium 

Hall of ditto 

Battle-scene in ditto . 

Hagar Silsilis 





Page 




18 


. 


. 34 




40 


. 


. 63 




68 




. 90 




103 




. 113 




120 




. 138 




140 




. 152 




165 




. 176 




176 




. 178 




201 



CONTENTS. 



PUEFACE ......... 

IIiSTOpacAL Introduction ....... 

Chap. I. Departure from Marseilles. — the india mail. — a ship run 

DOWN. A glance at MALTA. ALEXANDRIA. ANCIENT AND MODERN 

characteristics. PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE CITY. ITS TOPOGRAPHY 

AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS ...... 

Chap. II. Departure from Alexandria. — the canal. — first impres- 
sions OF THE NILE VALLEY. ITS AGRICULTURE AND ANIMALS. ANTI- 
QUITY OF EGYPT. SAIS AND NAUCRATIS. FIRST SIGHT OF THE PYRA- 
MIDS. ARRIVAL AT CAIRO .... 

Chap. III. Cairo. — situation. — characteristics. — streets. — bazaars. — 

ARABIAN MONUMENTS. MOSQUES. — GATES, TOMBS, AND PRIVATE DWELL- 
INGS ......... 

Chap. IV. Departure for thebes. — dancing-girls. — slave-boat. — the 

RAMADAN. DENDERA. KENEH ...... 

Chap. V. Thebes. — its history'. — Libyan suburb. — tombs of the kings. 

MEDEENET HABOU. — MEMNONIUM. LUXOR AND KARNAK 

Chap. YI. Thebes to esneh and edfou. — Assouan. — the cataracts. — 

PHIL.E. ABUSIMBAL. MERGE ...... 



Page 
iii 



11 



30 



46 



108 



147 



198 



HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 



SAMUEL SHARPE, ESQ. 

The Egyptians are tlie earliest people known to us as a 
nation. When Abraham entered the Delta from Canaan, 
they had already been long enjoying all the advantages 
of a settled government and established laws. While 
Abraham and his countrymen were mo\dng about in 
tents and wagons, the Egyptians were living in cities. 
They had already cultivated agriculture, and parceled 
out their valley into farms: they reverenced a land- 
mark as a god, while their neighbors knew of no prop- 
erty but herds and movables. They had invented 
hieroglyphics, and improved them into syllabic writing, 
and almost into an alphabet. They had invented 
records, and wrote their kings' names and actions on the 
massive temples which they raised. Of course we have 
no means of counting the ages during which civilization 
was slowly making these steps of improvement. Over- 
looking, therefore, those years when the gods were said 
to have reigned upon earth, and Menes the fabulous 
founder of the monarchy, history begins with the earliest 
remaining records. These are, the temple at Karnak, 



HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 



and tlie obelisk at Heliopolis, both raised by Osii'tesen 
I. of Tliebes, and tlie great pyramids built by Supliis 
and Sensuphis, kings of Mempliis, with tlie tablets in 
the copper mines near Sinai, which record the conquest 
of that country by Suphis, and prove that those mines 
had been already worked by the Egyptians. Such was 
the state of Egypt in the time of Abraham. It was 
di\dded into several little kingdoms, whose boundaries 
can not now be exactly known. In the valley to the 
south of Silsilis was the kingdom of Elephantine. 'Next 
was the kingdom of Thebes, which perhaps included all 
the valley to the east of the river. It had a port at 
^num on the Eed Sea, and thus traded with Arabia. 
Next Fas the kingdom of This, or Abydos, on the west 
of the river, which had a little trade with the Great 
Oasis ; and then the kingdom of Heracleopolis also on 
the western bank. Next was the kingdom of Memphis, 
embracing the western half of the Delta, which in the 
reign of Suphis had been strong enough to conquer 
Thebes and the peninsula of Sinai. In the east of the 
Delta were the kingdoms of Bubastis and Tanis. 

It was in the time of these little monarchies that the 
Chaldeans and Phenician herdsmen were movino^ west- 
ward, and settling quietly in the Delta. But after a 
few generations, as their numbers increased, they took 
possession of some of the cities, and leaded a tribute 
from the Egyptians. Their sovereigns were called the 
Hyksos, or Shepherd kings, who dwelt at Abaris, prob- 
ably the city afterward called Heliopolis, and they 
held their ground in Egypt for about six reigns. The 
tyranny, however, of the Hyksos at length led the 



HISTORICAL IXTRODUCTIOX. 6 

states of Egypt to unite against them ; and Amasis, king 
of Thebes, making common cause with the kings of the 
other parts of Egypt, defeated these hateful but warlike 
Phenicians, and drove them out of the country. This 
may have taken place about fourteen hundred and fifty 
years before our era, and about two hundred years after 
the reign of Osirtesen I. 

With Amasis and the expulsion of the Shepherds 
began the reigns of those great Theban kings, whose 
temples, and statues, and obelisks, and tombs, have for 
more than three thousand years made the valley of the 
Nile a place of such interest to travelers. The kings 
of the other parts of Egypt sunk to the rank of sover- 
eign priests. Amunothph I. gained Ethiopia by mar- 
riage. Thothmosis II., by his marriage with Queen 
Mtocris, the builder of the third pyramid, added Mem- 
phis to his dominions. Thothmosis IV. perhaps carved 
the great sphinx. Amunothph III. set up his two 
gigantic statues in the plain of Thebes, one of which 
uttered its musical notes every morning at sunrise. 
Oimenepthah I. added to the temples of Thebes and of 
Abydos. Kameses II. covered Egypt, and Ethiopia, 
and the coasts of the Red Sea, with his temples, and 
obelisks, and statues. He fought successfully against 
the neighboring Arabs, and marched through Palestine 
to the shores of the Black Sea. Rameses III. still 
further ornamented Thebes with his architecture. 

It was at the beginning of this period, before Memphis 
was united to Thebes, that the Israelites settled in the 
Delta, and Joseph, as prime minister of the king of 
Memphis, changed the laws of Lower Egypt. And it 



HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. I 

i 

i 



was after Tliebes and Mempliis were united, wlien 
Joseph's services liad been forgotten, tliat Moses led his 
countrymen out of Egypt to escape the tyranny of their 
masters. The Egyptian religion at this time was the 
worship of a crowd of gods, of which some were stone 
statues, and others living animals ; and it was against 
these and other Egyptian superstitions that many of the 
laws of Moses are pointedly directed. 

The tombs of these kings are large rooms quarried 
into the Libyan hills opposite to Thebes, with walls 
covered with paintings still fresh, and with hieroglyphics 
which we are attempting to read. The columns which 
upheld their temples are the models from which the 
Greeks afterward copied. Their statues, though not 
graceful, are grand and simple,* free from false orna- 
ment, and often colossal. Their wealth was proverbial 
with the neighboring nations ; and the remaining monu- 
ments of their magnificence prove that Egypt was at 
this time a highly civihzed country, to which its neigh- 
bors looked up with wonder. The Jewish nation was 
weak and struggling with difficulties l)efore the reign 
of David ; the history of Greece begins with' the Trojan 
war ; but before the time of David and the Trojan war, 
the power and glory of Thebes had already passed 
away. Uj)per Egypt sunk under the rising power of 
the Delta. Theban prosperity had lasted for about 
five hundred years. 



HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 



B. C. 990. 

On tlie fall of Tliebes, SMsliank of Bubastis, tlie con- 
queror of Kelioboam, governed all Egypt, and recorded 
on tlie walls of tlie great Tbeban temple his victories 
over tlie Jews. But after his death Egypt was torn to 
pieces by civil wars. Zerah, king of Ethiopia, was able 
to march through the whole length of the land. For 
a few reigns the kingdom was governed by kings of 
Tanis. Then the kings of Ethiopia reigned in Thebes, 
and led the armies of Egypt to help the Israelites 
against their Assyrian masters. This unsettled state of 
affairs lasted nearly three hundred years, during which, 
as the prophet Isaiah had foretold, Egyptians fought 
against Egyptians, every one against his brother, and 
every one against his neighbor, city against city, and 
kingdom against kingdom. It was put an end to by 
the city of Sais rising to the mastery, helped by the 
number of Greeks that had settled there, and by the 
greater skill in arms of the Greek mei^cenaries whom 
the kings of Sais took into their pay. 

Under the kings of Sais Egypt again enjoyed a high 
degree of prosperity. They were more despotic than 
the kings of Thebes. They hired Greek mercenaries, 
and struggled with the Babylonians for the dominion 
of Judea. Psammetichus conquered Ethiopia. Necho 
began the canal from the Nile to the Bed Sea. His 
sailors circumnavigated Africa. He conquered Jerusa- 
lem; and when the Chaldees afterward drove back 
the Egyptian army, the remnant of Judah, with the 
prophet Jeremiah, retreated into Egypt to seek a 



« HISTORICAL INTHODUCTION. 

refuge witli king Hophra. Tlie colony of Greeks at 
Nauci'atis, a little below Sais, now became more impor- 
tant. The Greek philosopliers, Thales and Solon, visited 
the country, brought there by trade and the wish for 
knowledge. Hecatseus of Miletus went up as high as 
Thebes, and Pythagoras dwelt many years among the 
priests. But Egyptian greatness now rested on a weak 
foundation. Jealousy increased between the native 
soldiers and the more favored Greek mercenaries. The 
armies in Asia met with a more powerful enemy than 
formerly. Nebuchadnezzar defeated them on the banks 
of the Euphrates. Cyrus reconquered the island of 
Cyprus ; and lastly, Cambyses overran Egypt, and 
reduced it to the rank of a Persian province. 

B. C. 523. 

For two hundred years Eg}^t suffered severely under 
its Persian rulers, or else from its own struggles for 
freedom, when the Persian armies were called off by 
warfare in another quarter. Cambyses plundered the 
tombs and temples, broke the statues, and scourged the 
priests. Darius governed more mildly by native 
satraps ; but after his defeat at Marathon, the Egyptians 
rose and made themselves independent for two or three 
years. Afterward, when Bactria rebelled against Ar- 
taxerxes, they again rose and made Inarus and Amyr- 
tseus kings. Then for a few years Hellanicus, and 
Herodotus, and other inquiring Greeks, were able to 
enter the Nile, and study the customs of this remarka- 
ble people. When the Egyptians were again con- 



HISTORICAL IJfTRODUCTIOX. / 

quered, Darius Nothus attempted to alter tlie religion 
of the country. But wlien tlie civil war broke out 
between Artaxerxes Mnemon and tbe younger Cyrus, 
the Egyptians rebelled a third time against the Persians, 
and with the help of the Grreeks were again an inde- 
pendent monarchy. Plato and Eudoxus then visited 
the country. The fourth conquest by the Persians was 
the last, and Egypt was governed by a Persian satrap, 
till by the union among the Greek states, their merce- 
naries were withdrawn from the barbarian armies, and 
Persia was conquered by Alexander the Great. 

B. C. 332. 

The Greeks had before settled in Lower Egypt in 
such numbers, that as soon as Alexander's army 
occupied Memphis, they found themselves the ruling 
class. Egypt became in a moment a Greek kingdom ; 
and Alexander showed his wisdom in the regulations 
by which he guarded the prejudices and religion of 
the Egyptians, who were henceforth to be treated as 
inferiors, and forbidden to carry arms. He founded 
Alexandria as the Greek capital. On his death, his 
lieutenant Ptolemy made himself king of Egypt, and 
was the first of a race of monarchs who governed for 
three hundred years, and made it a second time the 
chief kingdom in the world, till it sunk under its own 
luxuries and vices and the rising power of Rome. The 
Ptolemies founded a large public library, and a museum 
of learned men. Under their patronage Theocritus, 
Callimachus, Lycophron, and ApoUonius Rhodius wrote 



8 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 

tlieir poems ; Euclid wrote liis Elements of Geometry ; 
Apollonius of Perga invented Conic Sections ; Hi23- 
parcbus made a catalogue of the stars; Eratosthenes 
measured the size of the eai'th ; the Bible was translated 
into Greek ; several of the Apocryphal books were 
written ; Homer was edited ; anatomy was studied. 
But poetry soon sunk under the despotism, and the 
writers were then contented to clothe science in verse. 
Aratus wrote an astronomical poem ; Manetho, an astro- 
logical poem; Meander, a medical poem; and after- 
ward Dionysius, a geogi-aphical poem. 

Under these Alexandrian kings the native Egyptians 
continued building their grand and massive temples 
nearly in the style of those built by the kings of 
Thebes and Sais. The temples in the island of Philse, 
in the Great Oasis, at Latopolis, at Ombos, at Dendera, 
and at Thebes, prove that the Ptolemies had not wholly 
crushed the zeal and energy of the Egyptians. An 
Egyptian phalanx had been formed, armed and disci- 
j)lined like the Greeks. These soldiers rebelled against 
the weakness of Epiphanes, but mthout success ; and 
then Thebes rebelled against Soter II., but was so 
crushed and punished, that it never again held rank 
among cities. 

But while the Alexandrians were keeping down the 
Egyptians, they were themselves sinking under the 
Komans. Epiphanes asked for Roman help; his two 
sons appealed to the senate to settle their quarrels and 
guard the kingdom from Syrian invasion; Alexander 
II. was placed on the throne by the Eomans; and 
Auletes went to Rome to ask for help against his sub- 



HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION, y 

jects. Lastly, ike beautiful Cleopatra, tlie disgrace of 
lier country and tlie firebrand of tlie Republic, main- 
tained lier power by surrendering ber person first to 
Julius Caesar, and then to Mark Antony. 

B. C. 30. 

On the defeat of Mark Antony by Augustus, Egypt 
became a province of Rome, and was governed by tlie 
emperors witb suspicious jealousy. It was still a Greek 
state, and Alexandria was the chief seat of Greek learn- 
ing and science. Its library, which had been burnt by 
Caesar's soldiers, had been replaced by that from Per- 
j gamus. The Egyptians yet continued building temples, 
I and covering them Avith hieroglyphics as of old. But 
I on the spread of Christianity, the old superstitions 
j went out of use ; the animals were no longer w^orshiped ; 
i and we find few hieroglyphical inscriptions after the 
I reign of Commodus. Now rose in Alexandria the 
! Christian Catechetical school, which produced Clemens 
I and Origen. The sects of Gnostics united astrology 
i and magic with religion. The school of Alexandrian 
I Platonists produced Plotinus and Proclus. Monasteries 
I were built all over Egypt; Christian monks took the 
place of the pagan hermits, and the Bible was translated 
! into Coptic. 

! A. D. 337. 

On the division of the Roman empire, Egypt fell to 
the lot of Constantinople. On the rise of the Arian 
controversy, the Egyptians belonged to the Athanasian 



10 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION^. 

party, while tlie Greeks of Alexandria were chiefly 
Arians. Hence anew cause of weakness to the govern- 
ment. Under Theodosius, Paganism and Arianism 
were forbidden by law, the library was burnt by the 
Athanasians, and the last traces o^ science retreated 
from Alexandria before ignorance and bigotry. The 
country fell off every year in civilization, in population, 
and in strength ; and when the Arabs, animated by 
religion, and with all the youth and vigor of a new 
people, burst forth upon their neighbors, Egypt was 
conquered by the followers of Mohammed, a. d. 640, six 
hundred and seventy years after it had been conquered 
by the Romans. 



CHAPTER I. 



DEPARTURE FROM MARSEILLES. THE INDIA MAIL. A SHIP RUN DOWN. A GLANCE AT 

MALTA. ALEXANDRIA. ANCIENT AND MODERN CHARACTERISTICS. PANORAMIC VIEW ' 

I 
OF THE CITY. ITS TOPOGRAPHY AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS. '. 

i 

On a bright day in the month of June, 1845, I found myself 
safely berthed on board the government steamer, and sur- | 
rounded by the busy panorama of Marseilles and its crowded \ 
harbor. The time for our departure had expired, but ■ 
something had detained the courier with the India mail, and 
we were becoming impatient, when boats were seen rapidly j 
pushing through the crowded shipping. In one moment they ; 
were recognized as bringing the object of our anxious expecta- j 
tion, in the next, all hands were active in hoisting it on | 
board, and in almost the next, the captain's " Go on" an- | 
nounced that we were off. Few persons at home have any idea | 
of the mass of correspondence thus conveyed : upward of a | 
hundred square boxes, carefully sealed and marked " India i 
Mail outward," were consigned to the hold as we rapidly | 
cleared the harbor and lost sight of the city. The impression 
of the vast importance of our distant empire thus made, was 
deepened by the character of the passengers on board : officers 
returning after leave of absence, others going out for the first 
time, veterans proceeding to distant governments, heads of com- 
mercial houses and junior clerks, correspondents of news- 
papers and restless tourists, together with an elegant Indian 
prince, who, tempted by the facility of intercourse, had visited 
England, and was now returning, and a young widow of Bom- 



12 A SHIP RUX DOWN 

j, 

bay, whose weeds looked too becoming to allow the anticipation 

that they would be either renewed or over-worn, made up the 

I company, all disposed, at this distance from home, to dispense 

I with introductions, and to amalgamate cordially into one tem- 

i porary family. 

I The weather was at first beautiful, but on the second day be- 

i came squally. We passed the rude wild mountains of Sardinia ; 
I the wind sunk, but left a heavy swell, which kept me awake to 
I a late hour in the night : suddenly I was alarmed by a loud 
noise on deck, much stamping, and cries of " Back her :" evi- 
dently some disastrous event was momentarily expected ; but 
whether we were about to run down a fishing boat, or were 
ourselves on the point of being crushed into the ocean depths by 
the keel of some monster ship of the line, was all uncertain. I 
leaped from my berth, and was groping across the cabin when 
the crash took place. It seemed trifling, as though we had but 
grazed another vessel, and I hastened up the gangway, quite 
relieved of my alarm. On the deck, however, all was confu- 
sion and clamor ; but in the midst of it the men were engaged 
in hastily letting down a boat : it was a dusky night ; our ship 
was rolling in the heavy sea, the wind was aft, and the smoke 
driren forward involved the look-out in obscurity, but I could 
see, although with difficulty, a brig pitching laboriously at a short 
distance. Shouts were heard on board her; our boat put off, 
and was soon lost to sight among the rolling billows : all was sus- 
pense, when the cry burst out forward, that the brig was sink- 
ing. I strained my eyes through the gloom, and beyond the 
swelling ridges of water that successively traced their dark out- 
lines against the sky, distinctly saw the masts, but only for a 
moment ; in the next they had disappeared, and almost at the 
same time, a boat, deeply laden, was seen emerging from be- 
tween two gulfy waves, and making for us : this wild scene 
passed as rapidly and confusedly as a dream. The crowded 
boat was soon alongside, tossing dangerously in the swell : 
ropes w^ere let down, and one by one the crew of the brig, of 



A GLANCE AT MALTA. 13 

whom happily all had been saved, were hauled up to the deck. 
The first that came up was a boy of only twelve or thirteen, 
albeit looking, in his blue woolen shirt and sailor's trowsers, one 
of the finest little fellows I ever saw. Asleep in his rude cot, 
he had been hastily snatched from destruction, and stood 
scarcely awake, and quite confounded at his novel situation. 
We had struck the vessel amidships, and sHght as the shock 
seemed to me, had completely torn open her side : the crew 
had barely time to throw themselves into the boat, and get 
clear of her, ere she filled and went down. The darkness, our 
blinding smoke, and the accidental going out of their lamp, 
which occasioned some mistake in their steering, were the 
causes of this misfortune, which cast its gloom over tlie rest of 
our short voyage to Malta. 

The next day, the swell had subsided, a gentle breeze kept us 
steadily before the wind, the sky had resumed its deep cerulean, 
and after a glorious sunset, with the freshening wind, we cut 
swiftly through the seething billows, sparkling with phosphoric 
light, while the horizon flashed with the vivid summer light- 
ning. Indescribably beautiful are such evenings in the 
Mediterranean ; and as you approach the island of Malta, 
brilliantly arise from the dark blue sea the white Moresco- 
looking walls and domes of its capital, Valetta, bristling with 
fortifications ancient and modern, backed by a sky already 
nearly African, warm, lustrous, and soft, and without a particle 
of smoke to prevent the minutest and most distant objects from 
being relieved with the utmost clearness. One feels sensibly 
approaching the golden climate of the East. A few hours in 
this stronghold of the ancient knights of St. John of Jerusalem, 
is a delightful relief to the sameness of even a brief voyage. 
To any one coming for the first time from Northern Europe, the 
whole scene is singularly foreign. The white and yellow houses 
of the city are piled picturesquely one above another, with their 
flat roofs, and large projecting green verandahs, surmounted 
by towers and domes of every variety of unaccustomed form, 



L. 



14 A GLANCE AT MALTA. 

and with little vegetation, but that little consisting of orange 
trees, broad-leaved bananas, and patches of briUiant scarlet ge- 
raniums. On the quays, swarms of babbling lazzaroni mingling 
with sturdy seamen, on the cool flat roofs, groups of ladies 
wrapped from head to foot in their black silk mantillas, the 
noble harbor studded with men of war and steamers, the 
crowd of white-sailed feluccas, and gayly-painted and draperied 
boats — present altogether a spectacle as novel and peculiar as 
it is brilliant. 

Strange and foreign looking, however, as the place appears 
at first, you have but to land to seem half at home. English 
soldiers, in their familiar costumes and erect, disciplined bearing, 
and shops ^set out on the English model, might make you forget 
your distance from it ; but images of saints, and shrines, and 
priestly processions, followed by a crowd of barefooted lazza- 
roni, soon restore the original impression, — while amid the 
" thunder of ten thousand tuneless bells," you ascend, jostled 
by a throng of importunate beggars, " those cursed streets of 
stairs," as Byron calls them, which lead up into the prin- 
cipal street, and to the famous church of St. John. The 
twenty-four hours allowed for our brief sojourn had however 
expired, and from the commanding height of the terraced 
promenade above Valetta I cast a parting look over the splendid 
panorama. There was our well-appointed vessel, getting up 
her steam, surrounded by a crowd of others, attracted to this 
central point, where the different lines of steamers employed in 
the transmission of correspondence do meet and congregate. 
Far different was the scene in this respect when I last traced 
the same route : instead of the prompt, rapid, and almost luxuri- 
ous conveyance which these afford, whatever be the port de- 
sired, I had then to wait three tedious weeks for the privilege of 
sailing in an old dirty Maltese brig. Fifteen days of suffering 
were then passed in the voyage to Egypt ; the vessel was un- 
speakably filthy, swarming with rats, cock-roaches, and other 
vermin, and when after a prostration of several days by sickness 



ALEXANDRIA. 15 

I awoke to a sense of ravening hunger, musty biscuits, Sardines, 
and olives, and salt fish, all too dear even at the low price of 
sixpence per day, were the only viands to be obtained ; for in 
confiding ignorance of the state of the ship's stores, I had neg- 
lected to lay in any stock of provisions. 

And now again we were safe on board, and gliding out of the 
harbor. Domes and terraces, ramparts and quays, flew by. 
The fort of St. Angelo with its solitary sentinel, and the meteor 
flag of England, waving from its battlements, succeeded, and 
then again the open sea, all sparkling and quivering with the 
warm reflected light. As we stretched away, the walls and 
towers massed into a glorious picture, bathed in that same rosy 
haze, now dying away, until all faded into indistinctness, and 
nothing met the eye but the stars sleeping in the pale azure, and 
the long track of phosphoric splendor, in which the glow- 
worms of the deep lay telling of the vagrant keel that had dis- 
turbed their slumbers. Our voyage through this summer sea 
was brief and prosperous. The sky grew warmer and warmer 
as we neared the coast of Africa, tinged, as it were, with a re- 
flection of the Libyan desert ; a soft purple hue, rather than the 
deep blue of Italy. On the fourth day appeared a long, 
low, yellow line of sand, scarcely visible above the azure sea, 
with a few distant palm trees, hke black specks, and camels 
pacing slowly along the shore, announcing that we were on the 
threshold of those lands of which we have so often dreamed ; 
the hope of visiting which was perhaps, at one time, too extrav- 
agant for a moment's indulgence. 

Yet the first view of Alexandria, full as it is of historical 
reminiscences, is, in all other respects, more unimposing than 
that of any other city on the Mediterranean. A long line of 
windmills on a sandy ridge, the new lighthouse and palace 
built by the present pasha, and the tall column of Diocletian, 
the only visible wreck of the ancient city — such are the few 
prominent objects which rise above the dead level of the sea. 
The entrance to the harbor is difficult, but its spacious area is 



16 



ALEXANDRIA. 



thronged with ships of war, steamers, merchantmen, and all the 
smaller craft incident to extended traffic. For under the 
government of Mehemet Ali, this city, which is his principal 
residence, and the scene of his most important improvements, 
has experienced an immense development, and is likely to re- 
gain a large proportion of its ancient consequence. 

Of this, Campbell, in a few graphic sentences, sets before us a 
striking picture. 

" Alexandria was the greatest of all the cities founded by a 
conqueror who built even more than he destroyed. He meant 
to revive in Alexandria the glory of Tyre, which he had ruined; 
and though he lived not to finish its noblest works, he was 
their real projector. Alexander in person traced the plan of 
the new city, and his architect, Dinarchus, directed its execu- 
tion. He designed the shape of the whole after that of a 
Macedonian cloak, and his soldiers strewed meal to mark the 
line where its walls were to rise. These, when finished, en- 
closed a compass of eighty furlongs filled with comfortable 
abodes, and interspersed with palaces, temples, and obelisks of 
marble porphyry, that fatigued the eye with admiration. The 
main streets crossed each other at right angles, from wall to 
wall with beautiful breadth, and to the length, if it may be 
credited, of nearly nine miles. At their extremities the gates 
looked out on the gilded barges of the Nile, of fleets at sea 
under full sail, on a harbor that sheltered navies, and a light- 
house that was the mariner's star, and the wonder of the world. 

" The first inhabitants brought together into this capital of 
the West, were a heterogeneous mass that seemed hardly to 
promise its becoming the future asylum of letters and science. 
Egyptians impressed with ancient manners and maxims, that 
had no sociality with the rest of the world — Jews, degraded by 
dependency, yet still regarding themselves as the only children 
of God — Macedonians, whose ruling passion was military pride 
— proper Greeks, who despised all the rest of mankind — and 
fugitive Asiatics, that were the sweepings of other conquests/' 



POPULATION OF ALEXANDRIA. 17 

"There was nothing of the old Egyptian gravity and stabiHty of 
character, says Sharpe, amid the Alexandrian populace. Cor- 
rupted by wealth, and destitute of freedom, they seemed eager 
after nothing but food and horse-races, those never-failing 
bribes for w^hich the idle of every country will sell all that a 
man should hold most dear. A scurrilous song or a horse-race 
would so rouse them into a quarrel, they could not hear for 
their own noise. They made but second-rate soldiers, while 
as singing-boys at the supper tables of the wealthy Romans 
they were much sought after, and all the world acknowledged 
that there were no fighting cocks equal to those reared by the 
Alexandrians." 

The splendor thus described has left scarce a wreck be- 
hind ; science and the muses have long since advanced west- 
ward ; but in the character of the population, at least, there 
remains a strong resemblance to the ancient city of the Ptole- 
mies. Sullen repulsive-looking Copts replace the exclusive 
old Egyptians, their reputed ancestors ; Greeks and Jews too 
swarm as before, both, possibly, changed a little for the worse ; 
nor would it perhaps be any great injustice to the mass of 
Levantines, or, with of course honorable exceptions, to the 
Franks, who make up the sum of the population, even now to 
designate them as the " sweepings" of their respective coun- 
tries. The streets swarm with Turks in splendid many- 
colored robes, half-naked brown-skinned Arabs, glossy Ne- 
groes in loose white dresses and vermilion turbans, sordid 
shabby-looking Israelites in greasy black, smart, jaunty, rakish 
Greeks, staid heavy-browed Armenians, unkempt, unwashed 
Maltese ragamuffins, and Europeans of every shade of respect- 
ability, from lordly consuls down to refugee quacks and swind- 
lers, and criminals who here get whitewashed and established 
anew. Here a Frank lady in the last Parisian bonnet ; there 
Turkish women enveloped to the eyes in shapeless black wrap- 
pers ; while dirty Christian monks, sallow Moslem dervishes, 
sore-eyed beggars, naked children covered with flies, and troops 

8 



1 

18 ALEXAII^^DRIA— LANDING. j 

of wandering, half-savage dogs, with all the ordinary spectacles | 
of Wapping and Portsmouth, present a singular and ever-shift- 
ing kaleidoscope of the most undignified phases of Eastern and 
Western existence, a perpetual carnival of the motley. 

To land in the midst of all this is some trial of the temper ; ' 
though one hardly knows whether to be more amused or pro- 
voked at the indefatigable donkey-boys ; who, before you 
have well set foot on the soil of this historic land, rush upon 
you simultaneously with their animals, and threaten to force 
you back again into the element you have just escaped, almost 
pulling you to pieces in the scuffle of which you are the object; 
assailing you the while in a deafening chorus of invitations and 
oaths in ludicrous variety, in a mingled Eastern and Western 
dialect. Jumping on the nearest beast you can contrive to 






m^ 




mount, no easy matter among the crowd of furious competitors, 
and opening a passage through the rest by the free use of any 
instrument at command, preferring, if attainable, a stout corbash 
made of bull-hide, that being the only convincing argument 
with an Alexandrian ass-boy — you advance at a full trot of the 
lively little animal, followed by the clamorous imp of a driver, 



ALEXANDRIA — HOTELS. 19 

whose thundering blows upon its crupper, make you some- 
what uneasy for the safety of your own ribs. Through unpaved 
streets, of half Oriental, half European aspect, in the lowest 
style of both countries, and which have been evidently run up 
in haste among the mud hovels of the poorer Arabs and the 
ruins of former buildings, you fly past shops kept by Greeks, 
Maltese, ItaKans, French, and sometimes, though rarely, by 
English ; who appear, in keeping with the town, dressed in 
a half European, half Asiatic style, very dirty, and very gro- 
tesque, till, finally, you emerge into the great square, an open, 
unpaved expanse, where are situated the different consulates, 
hotels, and cafes, and the comptoirs of the most wealthy mer- 
chants. This is of course the modern part of the city, and its 
appearance is striking. The buildings are all in the French 
and ItaHan style, spacious and handsome. The Greek and 
French consulates, in particular, have extensive facades, but the 
principal ornament will undoubtedly be found in a new and 
beautiful church, of original and happy design, about to be built 
for the English Protestants, and which is intended to occupy a 
conspicuous part of the square. 

Some years ago, there was no tolerable hotel at Alexandria : 
the two now established are large, rambling, and comfortless 
places, though, all things considered, surprisingly good for 
Egypt. The passage of Indian travelers has given rise to 
them, and is of course their chief support; and a singular 
scene of bustle and confusion occurs, when tide meets tide, and 
comers and goers mingle for a few brief hours, in this half-way 
house between London and Calcutta ; where fresh rosy faces 
from the one, full of eager curiosity and anticipation, are seen 
side by side with the languid, exhausted, apathetic exiles, re- 
turning from the other. 

Shortly after I took up my abode at " Ray's," the mail ar- 
rived from Bombay, and as it was high noon, and very hot, 
and a great scramble for rooms was going on, I had locked 
myself quietly into rny chamber " au second," to read. One 



20 SCENE m THE SQUARE. 

after another rushed up stairs, and tried the handle of the door 
in quest of a dormitory for himself, but to no purpose. When 
the hubbub had subsided, I got up to depart, but on turning 
the door handle, found that some one had fastened me in. 
How to get out was the question — bells there was none — and 
I went to the window to watch for somebody, who, peradven- 
ture, would come up to release me. Meanwhile a most amus- 
ing scene w^as going on in the square below. Some twenty or 
thirty donkey-boys had wedged in the hotel door to pounce 
upon the new-comers as they emerged, all dressed and ready 
to start on a ramble to the lions of Alexandria. As they suc- 
cessively came forth, both ladies and gentlemen, a general rush 
was made upon them, their toes were trodden on, and their 
coats and gowns nearly torn off their backs in the scramble 
for their possession ; one or two ladies being pulled down by 
rival boys, from the asses upon which they were mounted, to the 
no small detriment of their dress and delicacy. The battle 
now raged — the clamor was deafening — the Englishmen's 
blood was up ; they struck out fiercely with fists and sticks, 
but when menaced with a knock-down blow, the Alexandrian 
boy has a knack of thrusting up the head of his donkey to 
receive the shock, while he dodges behind, which is rather 
discouraging to an assailant. As one was driven back another 
filled his place. My tears were running down with laughter 
at the hopeless predicament of the travelers, and I was wonder- 
ing how they would ever contrive to get out, when I was 
startled by an apparition which instantly changed the state of 
affairs. A tall gaunt figure, more than six feet high, leaped 
from a side shop with a tremendous yell, into the midst of the 
belligerents. He was armed with a leathern thong, (which, 
by the way, every Egyptian traveler should procure,) very 
thick, and even longer than his own long body — this he 
grasped firmly by the middle, and plied right and left with 
such amazing address and vigor, that neither boy nor beast 
could stand it for a moment. The rout was instantaneous, and 



AN OLD FRIEND FOUND. 21 

the discomfiture complete. There was a general scatter of the 
ass-boys all over the square, the Anglo-Indians were free, and 
their great deliverer, with a grave bow to them, which might 
have befitted the knight of La Mancha himself, turned round 
to re-enter his abode. In doing so his features were revealed, 
I instantly recognized him, and seizing a slipper, directed it 
with unerring precision upon the top of his hat, at the same 
time shouting his name at the utmost pitch of my lungs. He 
looked upward to my whereabout with a countenance inflamed 
with wrath, which gave place to a grim smile as he recognized 
the features of an old acquaintance. I bawled forth my predic- 
ament, whereupon, hurrying into the hotel, he ran up-stairs and 
released me from my durance. In what strange ways does a 
traveler frequently fall in with those with whom he was long 
since intimate! Here was a friend I had sailed with some years 
before in the Archipelago, and in whose society I had per- 
formed quarantine in the old Lazaret of Syra, a barrack swarm- 
ing with rats, and almost pestilential with filth. Many an ad- 
venture we had together, and many a good story he told me, 
though this is not the place to dwell upon either. Suffice it to 
say, that after being battered about from place to place in the 
Levant, he had at length contrived to find a quiet haven in the 
city of Alexandria. . 

From the balconies of these hotels, the view over the great 
square is amusing, still presenting the same mixed and semi- 
oriental character. The elegant equipages of the consuls, and 
the plain attire of the well-mounted Frank gentlemen, and their 
numerous compatriots of lower degree on donkeys or on foot, 
contrast boldly with the costume of the natives. The 'Fellahs,' 
or Egyptian Arabs, (who are supposed by some to be, rather 
than the Copts, the real descendants of the ancient Egyptians, 
of course with some modification,) although they fulfil the 
offices of laborers, porters, water-carriers, ' sais' or grooms, and 
donkey-drivers, interest the spectator at once as a fine race ; 
and there is something very graceful and antique in the ap- 



22 . THE 'FELLAHS' AND THEIR HOVELS. 

pearance at a little distance, for they will rarely bear close 
inspection, of the lower class of the females ; untrammeled 
by tight garments of any sort, their costume consisting of a long 
joose blue robe, their hands and feet being uncovered, the 
wrists and ankles adorned with bracelets, their gait is easy and 
noble, and the necessity of bearing their water jars on their 
head, or their naked children on their shoulders, causes them 
to assume an erect position, and gives them their full stature. 
Their mud-built hovels, which the first storm destroys, in the 
midst of heaps of filth and offal, are the favorite resort of troops 
of those half-savage and masterless curs, that fiercely assail any 
one who attempts to penetrate into their quarter. Childhood, 
which, among the poorer class in other countries, often flour- 
ishes in the midst of poverty and squalor, in its happy buoy- 
ancy, here seems the most wTetched period of existence ; the 
rrieager, listless infants, covered with dirt and flies, which form 
a black ring around their apparently weak, diseased eyes, present 
a distressing spectacle. Yet, with all the hardships and oppres- 
sion they suffer, the Arabs, even of the lowest class, are a most 
immeasurably noisy, lively, mercurial people. Their woes sit 
more lightly on them than on our own overworked and degraded 
poor, whom nothing but the gin shop can arouse ; for one can 
hardly go out into the open spaces of the suburbs w^ithout falling 
in with groups assembled round some musician, or story-teller, 
filling their imaginations with all the wonders of oriental ro- 
mance, into which they can retreat from the wretchedness of 
their real present condition. 

Passing through these mingled currents of Eastern and West- 
ern life, I had an excellent view of the remarkable man, at whose 
bidding they have poured into Alexandria, and given to her a 
phoenix-like prosperity. He rode slowly by on horseback ; I 
was struck with his bearing, and with the searching glance of 
his quick gray eyes. His appearance is dignified, and very dif- 
ferent from that of the late Ibrahim, his son, whose traits were 
wholly coarse and unrefined. 



ANCIENT ALEXANDRIA. 23 

Leaving the noise and bustle of the great square, a few 
minutes' walk brings us among the towering mounds which 
entomb the ancient city ; white villas with gardens of waving 
palms start up at intervals among the desolations of ages ; new 
roads and avenues pierce through the accumulated sand and 
rubbish, and disclose sculptured fragments and yawning foun- 
dations, sometimes bringing forth even treasures of art ; and 
as these changes are still further carried on, much light will 
doubtless be thrown upon many obscure points in the topog- 
raphy. To obtain an idea of the comparative site of the 
ancient and modern cities, it is well to ascend to the height of 
Fort Cretin, but a few minutes' ride from the great square. The 
view hence over the Mediterranean, the two harbors, the lake 
Mareotis, and the entire area of splendid and populous Alexan- 
dria, is so complete, that it requires little stretch of imagination 
to recall vividly the many illustrious actors on this memorable 
theater, and the scenes in which they have figured, from its 
foundation even to our day. This will appear from the detailed 
description which accompanies the careful panoramic sketch 
taken from this point. 

The island of Pharos had long been used as a shelter for 
vessels, and a small town called Rhacotis existed there, but, as 
already stated, it was to Alexander that the idea first occurred 
of taking full advantage of the site for the establishment of a 
great commercial city. In the panoramic sketch, the position 
of the island is seen extending from the point on which stands 
the neiv light-house to that occupied by the old castle — the site 
of the celebrated Pharos, erected by the architect Sostratus 
of Cnidus, by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, which was 
counted one of the wonders of the world. The island was 
united to the main-land by a causeway called the Hepta- 
stadium, through which there was a communication from one 
harbor to the other ; this, in the course of ages, has become, 
like that of Tyre, broad enough to serve as the site of the 
greater part of the modern city. Of the double harbor formed 



24 ANCIENT ALEXANDRIA. 

by this causeway, the eastern, now called the old harbor, 
was originally the most important ; and around it, on the land 
which, as appears in the sketch, is now nearly clear of build- 
ings, stood formerly the quarter called Bruchion, contain- 
ing the palace, the museum, with the library, theater, &c., all 
remains of which have utterly perished. The site of the 
Caesarium, or temple of Caesar, is marked by the two obelisks, 
one of which is now prostrate, called Cleopatra's needles ; and 
beyond the projecting rock, mid- way between these monuments 
and Lochias point, stood, at the end of a mole, the Timonium, 
so called because 'built by Antony, for his desponding retire- 
ment after the battle of Actium. This, it is hardly necessary 
to say, was the principal quarter of Alexandria, that to which 
its historical interest principally belongs. On the other side 
of Cleopatra's needles, were the market and the docks, occupy- 
ing, as Wilkinson supposes, the site of the great square, and 
extending to the Heptastadium. There was an island called 
the Antirhodus, now destroyed — it is supposed by the action 
of the sea, and within its shelter a closed port belonging to 
the palace. No details of the western harbor are given by 
Strabo, the only point noticed being the artificial basin of 
Rhacotis, whence a canal went off to the lake Mareotis, as at 
present. This harbor, anciently called Eunostus, is now the 
principal one ; and on the shore are the palace of the pasha 
and the arsenal. The modern city chiefly occupies, as will 
be seen, the intervening space between the two harbors, 
but it is extending gradually inland. The whole of the space 
between the sea and the lake Mareotis, was covered by the 
ancient city. Two great streets, a hundred feet wide, inter- 
sected it at right angles, the general direction of which may 
still be traced ; one of these passed from the lake Mareotis, 
below Pompey's pillar, to the great harbor, so that the ship- 
ping was visible at each extremity. It will be seen that but a 
very small part of the immense site of the ancient city is now 
built upon ; an irregular wall incloses about half of it, but 



MODERN 



E IJ N O S T 5 



OLD PORT 



L iNE OF CAt 

Pillar OF Diocletian ser/^pion 



rO LAKE M A R<£OT I S 



W A R A 3 Ul POINT 



FORT 
CAFFA RELLI 



N EW LIGHT 
HOUSE 





LAZ2ARETT0 



DIRECTION C/eSAR"; CAMP 

OF FRENCH ROSETTA SITE OF CAl^»PIC LINE OF CANAL 

ABOUKIR WHERE ABERCROMSIE FELL ,,^,55 ^^rt GATE TO THE NILE 




a CreiU Fore 

h Port of Eunosoj^s 

c Frorrumtory of Lochms 

d Port of (Xbocus 

e ReptastadUan 

f Jslcmd ofJntirrhodXLS /' nmi losC) 

% A vnaJl promontory mi whuk steod 

The Exchange 

TempU erf Neptuzu 

^njtonys "Rmonium 
h Gati of tAA San 
i Gate- of Ae lifoon, 
\ Tht Otsarium. 




E X A N D F; I A 



\ N D 



O F 



PHAROS 



'N TOWN HEPTASTADIUM 

AS PALACE 



COPTIC 
CON V ENT 



PHAROS 

ROCk 



NEW PORT 

c*_s*RtuM PUARTER OF 

( C L eOPATRAS MEEOLE ) 



iRuCHiON iSiveof LiV.iv 
POI NT LOCHIA 




:::?'.^' 



K E 

FORT CRETIN 






1 Ttmple. of Serapis wiOiDwciettans- Column 


5?a 


ra Falire of the PcahmUs 




n. Canal 


^_^^^^^ 


p Tanplt of Par,. 
q Thtatri 


SU,,o§^. 


X Museum. 




s Soma . or Bitnai p'-ace. 


'annfiic 


t Sutduin 




-w Tetrajivlori 

X Caxacombs , LrwUskt.ft,. 
J Je.s d' _ 2 i 


'J Cancptc Cmol 



ANCIENT ALEXANDRIA. 



25 



even this space is barely dotted here and there with modern 
villas, mosques, and convents, inclosed in extensive gardens of 
date-palms, thinly scattered among the immense mounds which 
cover in the ruins of this once so magnificent city. 

Of its numerous pubUc and private monuments, the only 
standing are the so called ' needles of Cleopatra,' and ' Pom- 
pey's pillar.' One of the former obelisks, more ancient than the 
foundation of the city, still remains, erect among its ruinous 
heaps. It is supposed to have been brought from Heliopolis, 
the seat of all the wisdom of the Egyptians, until this became 
transferred to Alexandria ; it bears the name of Thotmes III., 
and its lateral hieroglyphics that of the great Rameses. Pom- 
pey's pillar, as it is commonly called, stands on the lonely 
mounds overlooking the lake Mareotis and the modern city. 
It is a noble column ; the shaft, a single block of red granite, 
about seventy feet high ; the total height being ninety-five feet ; 
its substructions were once under the level of the ground, and 
formed part of a paved area. Mr. Sharpe, indeed, supposes this 
to have been the site of the Serapion, and from the Arab his- 
torians cited by Mr. Lane, it appears that in the days of Amer, 
the Arab conqueror of Egypt, it belonged to a magnificent 
building, containing the library which w^as burned by order of 
the caliph Omar. No less than four hundred columns are de- 
scribed as having surrounded it, which were thrown into the 
sea. An inscription on the column shows it to have been 
erected, some contend only dedicated anew, by Publius, prefect 
of Egypt to the emperor Diocletian. The monks of the Coptic 
convent, seen in the view, claim still to possess the rehcs of St. 
Mark, who suffered martyrdom at Ale:* andria, and whose remains 
were said to have been transported to Venice. 

Beyond these isolated monuments there is little else which 
might seem even to point out the site of other famous struc- 
tures ; though there can be no doubt that, if the city increases, 
as excavation prevails, further discoveries will be made, some 
objects of great value having been already dug up. The cata- 



26 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ALEXANDRIA. 



combs, to the west of the city, would alone testify to its former 
extent, though only one of the monuments merits particular 
notice, an elegant excavation with a Greek facade of great 
purity of style. 

In the panorama the site of Caesar's camp is also indicated, 
the scene of the engagement where fell the gallant Aber- 
crombie ; and a few miles farther, in the same direction, is the 
memorable bay of Aboukir. An Englishman is in little danger 
of forgetting that, in addition to the common stock of historical 
associations connected with Alexandria, he has many peculiar 
to himself. If Shakspeare, by his magical creations, could 
make of Venice " a fairy city of the heart ;" the same potent 
enchanter has cast his spells over the desolate shore of the 
Bruchion — the scene of the luxury and despair of the Egyptian 
queen and her Roman lover. And the valor of England, no 
less than her genius, has hallowed the surrounding land and sea 
with a host of imperishable recollections. 

The ancient and modern history of Alexandria alone would 
fill a volume, and one, too, of the most stirring interest. But 
this is altogether beyond our province, and we can but allude to 
its principal vicissitudes. Its rapid growth and the splendor it 
ultimately attained fully justified the anticipations of the Mace- 
donian conqueror. Gradually withdrawing from other chan- 
nels, the commerce of Arabia and India with the West flowed 
through Egypt, by way of the ports of the Red Sea, the Nile, 
and the ancient canal leading to this unrivaled emporium, and 
continued thus, both under the Ptolemies and the Romans, until 
the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good 
Hope. Science also, fostered by the munificence of the Ptole- 
mies, retired from her ancient seat at Heliopolis to this city. 
" The sages of the Museum, who lodged in that part of the pal- 
ace of the Lagides, might there be said to live as the priests of 
the muses, taking the word in a wide sense, as the patronesses 
of knowledge. They had gardens, and alleys, and galleries, 
where they walked and conversed ; a common hall, where they 



DESTRUCTION" OF THE LIBRARY. 27 

made their repasts ; and public rooms, where they gave instruc- 
tion to the youth who crowded from all parts of the world to 
hear their lectures. This museum, a unique establishment in 
literary history, was founded by Ptolemy Soter. And with 
regard to medicine, mathematics, mechanics, and astronomy, 
the shades of the greatest modern reformers of Europe would 
surely inform us that science can not look back too gratefully 
to the memory of Alexandria."* The celebrated library of the 
Ptolemies' collection, ultimately amounted to seven hundred 
thousand volumes; four hundred thousand were contained in 
the library of this museum, the remaining three hundred 
thousand in that attached to the temple of Serapis.f The 
former was accidentally destroyed in the war of Julius Caesar 
with the Alexandrians ; and the remaining collection, after 
various losses and transmutations, till it is supposed ultimately 
to have largely consisted rather of works of theological con- 
troversy than of literature and science, met its fate at the hands 
of the fanatic caliph Omar, at the time of the Mohammedan 
conquest, who ordered its destruction, on the ground that if the 
contents of the books were agreeable to the word of God, i. e. 
the Koran, there could be no need of them, and if the contrarv, 
they ought not to exist ; and they were accordingly used for 
heating the four thousand baths of the great city of the West, 
as it is styled by Omar in his letter to the caliph, which then ' 
contained, beside four thousand palaces, four hundred theaters 
or places of amusement, twelve thousand shops for the sale of 
vegetables, and forty thousand tributary Jews. 

Rapidly, indeed, must the trade and wealth of Alexandria 
have declined under the combined and ruinous disadvantages 
of the Moslem rule, and the new course of the Indian trade, 
until just before the time of Mehemet Ali, when it was a 
miserable place of a few thousand inhabitants, cut off from the 
valley of the Nile by the ruin of the ancient canal. Under his 

* Campbell's Lectures. -j- Wilkinson. 



28 IMPROVEMENTS BY MEHEMET ALL 

government it has greatly revived both in pohtical and com- 
mercial importance, and the re-opening of the canal has re- 
stored to its harbor all the trade of Egypt. While the over- 
land commmiication with India, if it has not brought back the 
whole of this branch of commerce into its old channel, seems to 
open up prospects of increasing interest on this ground also. 

To the traveler, anxious for the moment which shall disclose 
to him the wonders of the land of the Pharaohs, Alexandria 
is but a dull place, though in the way of society there are more 
resources than elsewhere. But he is here on the threshold of 
Egypt, which he is impatient to overleap and proceed onward. 
" Though the rest of Egypt was governed by Egyptian laws and 
judges," says Mr. Sharpe, " the city of Alexandria was under 
Macedonian law. It did not form part of the name of Hermo- 
polites, in which it was built. It scarcely formed a part of 
Egypt, but was a Greek state in its neighborhood, holding 
the Egyptians in a state of slavery. In that city, no Egyptian 
could live without feeling himself of a conquered race : he was 
not admitted except by an especial favor to the privileges of 
Macedonian citizenship, while they were at once granted to 
every Greek and to every Jew who would settle there. Hence, 
although the city was crowded with Egyptians who kept the 
shops and filled the lower ranks, and though the Greeks must 
often have married Egyptian wives, yet here these mixed races 
were never melted down into Egyptians. Whenever, during 
the reigns of the Ptolemies, the citizens of the capital of Egypt 
met in public assembly in the Gymnasium, they were addressed, 
'* Ye men of Macedonia." 

We shall not pause here to speak of the modern improve- 
ments by Mehemet Ali, which have justly excited the astonish- 
ment of travelers. The new palace, the arsenal, the numerous 
ships of war, vying in appearance at least with the proudest of 
European navies, the extension of the fortifications, &c., may 
well demand our admiration as the creation of one man ; they 
have but these trifling drawbacks, that they are utterly dispro- 



IMPROVEMENTS BY MEHEMET ALL 29 

portionate to the wants and means of Egypt, hastily got 
up by foreign rather than native energy, at the expense of the 
heart's blood of the country, which has been rapidly depopulat- 
ing, and utterly draining of its vital resources, till the unhappy 
population have sunk to the lowest depth of misery. To the 
superficial observer, Egypt may indeed appear to be about to 
arise from her long depression, and to assume again a rank 
among the nations ; but the spasmodic effort can only result 
in a profound exhaustion, unless, indeed, a far different and 
humaner system were pursued. Perhaps Mehemet Ali may 
be said rather to have destroyed than built up — destroyed, 
that is, what remained of the old Mohammedan system, and, 
by his numerous innovations, prepared the way for the con- 
struction of a new. Tottering, as he is, on the verge of the 
grave, he may die, perhaps, while these sheets are going 
through the press ;* and then what is to be the issue of all his 
ambitious schemes, and what is to be the fate of Egypt ? These 
are questions of which it may be imprudent to hazard just now 
the solution. 

* The event has justified this anticipation — he died on the 2d of August, 
1849. 



CHAPTER II. 



DEPARTURE FROM ALEXANDRIA. THE CANAL. — FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE NILE VAL- 
LEY. ITS AGRICULTURE AND ANIMALS. ANTIQUITY OF EGYPT. SAIS AND NAUCRATIS. 

FIRST SIGHT OF THE PYRAMIDS. ARRIVAL AT CAIRO. i 

On a former visit to Egypt, before the introduction of 
steamers between Alexandria and Cairo, I was compelled to 
begin my troubles at the former city, i. e. to provide myself 
with a servant, hire a boat, procure carpet, matress and 
bedding, lay in a store of provisions, and a "batterie de 
cuisine," with a variety of minor articles, which would fill a 
page or two to enumerate. But now, as opportunities occur by 
the steamer every few days, and as a comfortable hotel awaits 
the traveler's arrival at Cairo, he needs not to encumber him- 
self with such matters beforehand, unless, indeed, he is desirous 
of hiring a house or lodgings at the metropolis. There is so 
little to see between Alexandria and Cairo, that the saving 
of time and discomfort by steaming is very great. I have 
a feeling remembrance of the weary hours passed, during a 
former journey on the canal, in a huge, slow-moving Djerm, 
with a crowded company of the lower class of Egyptians, 
and of the horrid consequences of unavoidable proximity with 
their filthy persons and populous garments. Now a clean 
and comfortable barge, towed by a small steamer, in a third of 
the time, brings you to Atfeh, where you are transferred to 
another snug steamboat waiting for you on the Nile, and in 
about twelve hours reach Cairo. This canal, seventy miles in 
length, which connects the port of Alexandria with the Rosetta 



THE CAIS-AL — MISERY OF THE PEOPLE. 31 

branch of the Nile, was cut in 1819, by Mehemet All, and 
is a. fair sample at once of the important improvements intro- 
duced by him, at the suggestion, it is said, of Mr. Briggs ; and 
of the reckless, despotic haste, bungling mismanagement, and 
even cruel indifference to the claims and sufferings of his sub- 
jects, with which they are effected. A levy was ordered, and 
three hundred thousand men were gathered on the "scene of 
action ; but, owing to the want of a proper supply of provisions, 
or even tools, they were compelled to labor with their hands. 
The excavations were lower than the level of the sea, 
often deep in the mud, and thus, without adequate food or 
shelter from the deleterious atmosphere, and hurried on with 
barbarous indifference to life, thirty thousand are said to have 
perished in the course of the seven months in* which the work 
was completed. The canal, dull as it is, is somewhat animated 
by the constant passage of boats laden with the rich produce 
of the Valley of the Nile ; rice, corn, and cotton, for shipment 
at Alexandria — to enrich alone the grasping ruler and a few 
merchants, without leaving a trace of prosperity or comfort 
among the unhappy people from whose confiscated lands it 
is reaped, and by whose ill -paid labors it is produced. 
There is little to see on its banks beyond a distant glimpse of 
Aboukir Bay. One is weary, even before reaching the Nile, at 
the characteristics of wretchedness which everywhere meet the 
eye, — at the universal presence of the squalid mud dwelling or 
hovel of the Fellah, the naked filthy children basking among 
hosts of yelping dogs, and the clamorous, greasy, blear- 
eyed population, whose tattered garments seem alive with 
vermin, — at the disgusting anomaly of men, who, when engaged 
in boating, often divest themselves of every rag, while the 
women, veiled to the eyes, are striving to hide their ugly faces, 
— with many other indescribable spectacles, which indicate 
too plainly the absence of ordinary decency in a degraded 
people. In vain you look for the presence of any middle 
order ; wath few exceptions, all appear alike, there is but one 



32 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE NILE. 

class, and that sunk in a wide-spreading, dead uniformity of 
misery, — all indicates the existence of a race of slaves, who owe 
to kind nature, to the lightsome temperament induced by the 
serenity of the climate, and the few wants it occasions, the only 
mitigation of their unhappy condition, of which misgovern- 
ment and tyranny are unable to deprive them. 

Notwithstanding the very great conveniences enjoyed in 
traveling by a steamer, I shall always rejoice that my first 
impressions on the Nile were received in another kind of craft. 
I arrived at Atfeh, where the canal joins the river, in the 
evening, and found a small boat belonging to the then existing 
Transit Company, newly painted and fitted. A servant was 
on board to provide for and attend the hirer. Though it 
could not be deehied an economical conveyance, it was, for the 
size, exceedingly comfortable, and fitted with every requisite 
save bedding, which I had with me. It had, moreover, the 
honorable distinction of being the fastest sailer on the river, 
as I soon perceived, to my great satisfaction, by leaving every- 
thing behind. Happily, I had not yet learned the trifling 
drawback to this advantage which afterward came to light, 
that from its sharp build and the heavy press of sail that it 
carried, it had been more than once capsized. 

I hastened on board ; the sun had sunk and given place to a 
rosy twilight, and the moon peeped up above the rich level of 
the Delta. And here I must notice, that what reconciles the 
traveler to this land of plagues — of flies and beggars, of dogs 
and dust and vermin, is not alone the monumental w^onders on 
the banks of the Nile, but the beauty of the climate, the 
lightness of the air, inspiring a genial luxury of sensation, 
the glorious unfailing sunset and serene twilight, reflected in 
the noble river, and casting over the hoary remains of antiquity 
a glow and gorgeousness of hue which heightens their melan- 
choly grandeur, and gilding over a mud village until even 
its filth and misery are forgotten. ' I mounted the roof of the 
little cabin as the broad latine sail swelled smoothly under the 



A DEAD CALM. 33 

pressure of the Etesian wind, which, at this season of the 
inundation, by a wonderful provision of nature, blows steadily 
from the north, thus alone enabling vessels to stem the 
powerful current of the rising Nile. I had embarked on that 
ancient and sacred river, renewing before my eyes its majestic 
current, diffusing the same blessings to its rich valley as it had 
done in the days when Egypt was a mighty kingdom, when 
Thebes and Memphis and the pyramids arose upon its borders. 
The rich fans of the plume-like palms on the banks were 
j painted on the warm glow of the westward horizon, the level 
i valley with its wealth of production spread away in dusky 
I haze, but the breeze brought off from the shore its odorous 
musky fragrance, lamps twinkled in the cottages, and cast their 
reflections into the glassy stream — the noise and babble of the 
Fellahs, and sounds of the Darrabuka, or Egyptian drum, 
came off" and died away as we sailed past the villages on the 
bank. The boat, with her broad sails and her long wake 
whitening in the moon, and her Arab crew, lying upon deck, 
chanting their peculiar and plaintive songs, flew rapidly along 
through those historic waters. I sat up to a late hour, so 
delightful was my first impression of the patriarch of rivers. 

But on the following morning the scene was wholly changed. 
On awaking, we were close to the alluvial chocolate-colored 
bank, the rich deposit of countless inundations, and the crew 
on shore were engaged in the toilsome task of tracking or 
hauling the boat, (a process represented on the ancient sculp- 
tures,) to the music of a monotonous chant, which they seemed 
scarce able to utter. There was not a breath of air, and the 
warm, soft, cloudless sky was reflected back from the glassy 
surface of the broad yellow river. The heat was close and 
overpowering. Hours like these, of which the traveler on the 
Nile must make up his mind to not a few, are indeed awfully 
wearisome. It is too hot to go on shore and walk through the 
deep dust of the unsheltered bank, and cooped up and panting 
for breath in the narrow cabin of your boat, you seem doomed, 

5 



34 



MOSQUITOES AND FLIES. 



ere the ardors of noon abate, to be roasted alive, like a crab in 
its own shell. Everything inspires listless, restless, irritable 
ennui, only to be alleviated, if haply at all, by the fumes of the 
consoling pipe. It is well if, when thus becalmed and panting 
in a Nile boat, you are exempt (as from the recent painting and 
cleansing of mine was happily my case) from the company of 
bugs, fleas, cockroaches, and other creatures more minute and 
"famihar to man." But to the incursions of flies and mosqui- 
toes you lie helplessly exposed. The former, stingless though 
they be, may fairly take the lead as the principal of Egypt's 
plagues, and at the bare recollection of past sufferings one 
cannot help being animated with a feeling of vengeance. Their 
name is legion. You can neither eat nor drink without the 
risk of swallowing them, nor doze, or read, or draw, without 
a constant trial of temper from their incessant trailing over 
your eyes and ears and nostrils. The natives, being used 
to it, contrive to drop off" into an uneasy slumber, but for 




a new-comer this is a hopeless attempt. You sit all day 
with a fly-switch in your hand, and though a dozen times 
you rise in murderous mood, and clear the walls of the 



THE PLAGUES OF EaYPT. 



35 



cabin with wholesale slaughter, a few moments afterward 
they blacken its panels as before, and you piteously invoke 
4he breeze which would perhaps disperse the buzzing swarm 
of your mud-born tormentors, or, peradventure, waft you 
beyond their reach. In the fat slime of the Delta they are 
particularly numerous and active. I was told by a friend, who 
one evening pitched his tent on this rich level, that in addition 
to these plagues, he was visited by a numerous company of 
toads, which he kicked out of his tent without much ceremony. 
One, however, was accidentally left behind ; upon which, re- 
cumbent on his carpet in the midst of a tormenting swarm of 
flies and mosquitoes, the traveler's eye mechanically rested. 
The creature, ' perdu' in his nook, was deeply intent on snap- 
ping up fly after fly as they darted past his open maw ; upon 
which sight my friend immediately arose, and drove in again 
the whole company of the toads, in the hope of some trifling 
diminution, through their exertions, of the number of his petty 
tormentors. In addition to these, equally to be dreaded ashore 
or afloat, many and sore are the land plagues peculiar to Egypt, 
and no one who has been accustomed to a northern climate 
and a civilized country, can form any adequate idea of the 
annoyance they occasion. The troops of clamorous beggars, 
their eternal chorus for ' beckshish,' which everywhere ejicoun- 
ters the traveler, — the alarming results of contact with the 
tattered garments and filthy persons of the claimants, — the 
eternal howling of dogs by which he is everywhere beset, 
some of which are savage and dangerous, — the whirlwinds of 
hot suffocating dust amid which he must grope his way to 
tomb and temple, irritate alike his eyes, lungs, and temper, 
and too often convert his enthusiasm to fury. 

There is much that is at first amusing even on the lower 
Nile, though the scenery is, on the whole, somewhat monoto- 
nous. The villages of mud huts, embowered in palm groves 
that line the bank, with their pretty white minarets, and their 
noisy babbling crowd of Fellahs, — the glimpses of the vivid 



36 



SCENE UPON THE RIVER. 



green valley and its yellow desert boundary, like life and 
death in startling juxtaposition and contrast, — the sandy shoals 
covered with pelicans or ibises of brilliant white plumage, 
large flights of wild fowls and of pigeons from the villages, — the 
picturesque boats with their gay-colored passengers, — the 
men paddling along on rafts of water-melons or pottery, — the 
little thronged cafes under the deep shade of a grove of syca- 
more and palms, — the creaking ' Sakias,' or water-wheels used 
for the purpose of irrigation, all form a sort of slow, moving 
panorama, which, seen under a brilliant sky, by their lively 
novelty, serve to amuse for a while the tedium of our noonday 
progress. Though the characteristics of the scene have never 
materially changed, the river must have been infinitely more 
lively in former times, and the boats innumerable, from the state 
vessels of the kings and principal personages, with their high 
prows, hieroglyphic inscriptions, banks of oars, and brilliantly 
painted and richly ornamented sails, down to the ordinary pas- 
sage boat for the humbler classes. These sails, unlike the present 
triangular ones, were square, and more safe and manageable. 
The crowd upon the banks must have been incessant, with 
chariots and horsemen. Each village then was grouped around 
its elegant temple amid groves of palm. The extensive villas 
of the richer inhabitants, in a style half gay, half grave, with 
gardens and vineyards — now unknown to Egypt, studded the 
plain, which was, beside, in a far higher state of cultivation 
than at the present day. Then there were the costumes of the 
different castes, and their infinite variety of avocations, to add 
to the life and beauty of the picture in the Pharaonic ages. A 
light uncertain breeze sometimes relieved the boatmen from their 
laborious tracking, but it was not till afternoon that some real 
stormy puffs indicated the approach of the favoring Etesian 
breeze. The coming on of the sudden gusts on the Nile is at 
first very startling and alarming ; no action of driving clouds 
accompanies the squall, the sky above is perfectly serene, but, 
looking across the desert in the direction of the wind, you see 



ANTIQUITY OF EGYPT. 37 

tall columns of dust and sand, sometimes six or seven hundred 
feet in height, whirling sublimely across the desert, rapidly 
crossing the alluvial valley, and nearing the river, till the whole 
cloud, sweeping off* the bank, involves the ruffled surface of 
the stream in temporary obscurity, and half buries the boat on 
the leeward side. Without the utmost attention, indeed, there 
is great danger of suddenly capsizing, as indeed often happens, 
when the boatmen are too negligent to keep the rope, by which 
the huge sails are attached to the side, loose in their hand, 
so as to let it fly if the gust is dangerously violent. 

With the afternoon the breeze set in, and we sailed merrily 
along, passing one or two downward-bound boats, crammed 
almost to suffocation with a noisy motley crowd, in bright 
colored costumes, proceeding to the neighboring festival 
at Tanta, in commemoration of the birth of the Seyd Ahmad 
El-Bedawee, a celebrated Moslem saint; a scene of license 
greatly resembling the ancient Egyptian Saturnalia ; for the 
extremes of fanaticism and sensual indulgence are wont to be 
combined in both ancient and modern instances. Soon after 
arriving in Cairo, I heard of the loss of one of these very boats 
in a squall, having, as the rumor went, some two or three hun- 
dred persons on board, of whom the greater part went down. 
But such occurrences, though by no means unfrequent, occa- 
sion small concern in a land where the penny-a-line trade in 
'moving accidents' has no existence, and where coroner's 
inquests are unknown. 

One soon seems to breathe the air of profound antiquity on 
the banks of the Nile. We were now sailing near the sites of 
Naucratis and Sais, important settlements of Greek traders, 
who, from the earliest ages, carried on the chief part of the 
Egyptian trade in the Mediterranean. For the Egyptians, 
says Mr. Sharpe, like the Hindoos, looked upon the sea and 
voyages by sea with religious dread, and they held seafaring 
persons in dislike as impious. These Greeks lived under their 
own laws and customs, and obtained many privileges of the 



38 SAIS AND NAUCRATIS. 

Egyptian kings. The inhabitants of Naucratis were allowed 
to build temples for their own religion, which were erected at 
the expense of their countrymen in Greece. The overthrow of 
this little state probably took place in the reign of Amunmai 
Anemnib, and the chiefs driven out of Egypt carried with them 
to Greece so much that was valuable of Egyptian science and 
civilization, that many of the Grecian cities dated their founda- 
tion from their arrival. They gave to Greece its alphabet and 
its mythology, and so willing were the Greeks at all times 
to look back to Lowei; Egypt as the birth-place of their civiliza- 
tion, that instead of seeing that a handful of Greeks had in old 
times settled in the Delta, they thought Athens itself a colony 
from Sais. Thus at this period of Egyptian history, when we 
have traced the chronology of Theban kings for perhaps six 
hundred years, we are only entering on the fabulous ages of 
Greece. About four generations before the Trojan war, Sais 
became the seat of government instead of Thebes, under the 
last of the Ethiopian kings who conquered Egypt. It was in 
the decline of her greatness, when her own valor was sunk, 
and the Egyptian monarchs sought for the aid of Greek 
mercenaries. The kings of Sais were in fact as much Greek as 
Egyptian. Under their protection the sages of Greece visited 
Egypt in search of knowledge. Of these, Thales was the first. 
Solon soon afterward came to Naucratis as a merchant, bring- 
ing the olive oil of Athens to exchange for the corn of Egypt 
and the luxuries of India ; and while thus engaged, studied the 
manners and customs of the country. After selling his cargo, 
he visited Sais, and conversed with Egyptian priests. They 
called the Greeks mere children of yesterday, and professed to 
have a knowledge of the last nine thousand years. Solon re- 
turned to Athens with his mind enriched, and the Athenians 
were then establishing their democratic form of government, 
and Solon became their great philosophical lawgiver. Neith, 
the Egyptian Minerva, was principally worshiped at Sais, and 
it was celebrated for its splendid festival "of the Sacred Lamps." 



ASPECT OF THE NILE VALLEY. 39 

The general characteristics of this wonderful Nile valley are 
so well known, that it is hardly necessary to dwell at much 
length on them. From ' far Syene' and the rocky outposts of 
Nubia to the rich level of the Delta, the river preserves much 
the same breadth, of half a mile to three quarters, unless where 
its course is interrupted by islands, or contracted by rocks. 
On either hand is a green stripe of verdure, extending to the 
limit of the waters ; beyond is the illimitable desert. At this 
season the swollen stream comes down with great rapidity, 
and, at the angles of the banks, the current is so powerful as to 
require the efforts of all the crew to tow the boat against it. 
With the north wind a complete sea gets up. The cultivated 
land is adorned principally by groves of palm — the great beauty 
of Egypt — sometimes of considerable extent, at others thinly 
scattered ; here and there too is a dark cluster of sycamores, or a 
grove of fragrant acacia, haunted by thousands of birds. The 
great thoroughfare all up the river is along its bank, raised 
above the level of the inundation, and throwing off here and 
there a branch communicating with the villages remote from 
the river. There is a melancholy sameness in these wretched 
mud villages and small towns, built amid raised mounds of 
rubbish and filth which the wind scatters in clouds into every 
cranny of the place — a prominent Egyptian plague, as there is 
also in the abject population who inhabit them ; the women, in 
particular, beautiful for a brief year or two of girlhood, become 
tanned by the heat, and dried up by the climate and the hard 
toils to which they are subjected, till they become unspeakably 
hideous crones, whose aspect inspires a shudder of disgust. 

At evening, when the breeze lulled for a while, I went 
ashore in a grove of palms, and looked over the verdant level 
glowing in the slanting beams of the declining sun. The rich 
brow^n soil in the dry season, and when the river is low, 
requires irrigation to maintain its constant fertility. The 
method adopted in Lower Egypt is, as represented in the cut, 
to sink a pit in the bank, into which the water flows, and it is 



40 



THE INUNDATION. 




then raised, for this purpose, to the surface above by means of 
a broad wheel turned by a buffalo ; round the wheel is a band 
with numerous jars attached to it, which, as the wheel revolves, 
dip into and bring up the water, emptying it into a channel, 
from which it is distributed in trenches about the thirsty level. 
Thus irrigated, it will yield annually three crops ; being first 
sown with wheat or barley; a second time, after the vernal 
equinox, with indigo, cotton, millet, or some similar produce ; 
and again, about the summer solstice, with millet or maize. 
These, and the numerous fruits and vegetables which succeed 
one another in similar succession, render the rich valley of the 
Nile a carpet of perpetual verdure, except during the period of 
the inundation, and justify the description of it given by Amer, 
its Arabian conqueror, that "according to the change of 
seasons, it is adorned with a silver wave, a verdant emerald, 
and the deep yellow of a golden harvest!" The river 
begins to rise about the end of June, and attains its 
greatest height toward the end of September; its waters 
are retained, as the inundation subsides, in numerous canals, 
for the highest rise of the Nile ever known would scarcely 
be sufficient, if the waters were not then artificially re- 



DEIFICATION OF THE NILE. 41 

tained.* When the river has attained its maximum, very 
singular is the appearance of the whole country. On the 
high-raised bank you stand, as it were, between two seas, be- 
holding on one side the swollen, turbid flood, hurrying down 
rapidly in its irresistible might, and on the other, the inundated 
expanse, extending to the desert boundary of the valley ; the 
isolated villages in their groves are scattered about like float- 
ing islands, the palm-trees half-buried, and, except in a few 
places, the Gise, or dike, affords the sole circuitous communi- 
cation from one place to another. As it begins to fall, the 
sower, wading into the mud, literally " casts his bread upon 
the waters" which co /er the recent and still liquid deposit ; 
when the water drains off" from particular places, a carpet of the 
most vivid green immediately follows in its train, and the 
face of the land glows with a new-created beauty. The level 
of the alluvial land, as well as the bed of the river, are gradu- 
ally raised, so that the constant aggression of the sandy 
desert on the fertile valley, from which some have anticipated 
the ultimate destruction of the latter, is, though triumphant at 
some points, continually counteracted in the main, by the 
eternally- vivifying influence of the waters. The river to whose 
beneficent agency the ancient Egyptians owed their greatness, 
was, with their characteristic reverence of spirit, regarded by 
them as peculiarly sacred. " The god Nilus," says Wilkinson, 
" is frequently represented with w^ater-plants growing from his 
head, and binding up stalks or flowers indicative of the inunda- 
tion. Sometimes he bears fruits and flowers, emblematic of its 
fertilizing influence. In all the cities on the banks of the river 
certain priests were exclusively appointed to the service of this 
deity ; and if a corpse were found upon the sacred shore, the 
nearest town was obliged to embalm and bury it with every 
mark of honor." The water of the Nile, turbid and muddy, 
seems little at first to merit the praises lavished on it ; its ap- 
pearance is disgusting, and its taste at first insipid, the temper- 

* Mrs. Poole. 
6 



42 



ANIMALS OF EGYPT. 



ature being rather warm, but by degrees one comes to relish it 
beyond any other, and to drink more of it than is prudent. 
The ordinary mode of cooHng it is in jars of porous clay called 
' Goollehs,' the best of. which are made at Keneh in Upper 
Egypt. Among the brackish springs of the desert, Esau, had 
he but once tasted of the Nile, would far rather have bartered 
his birthright for a draught of its delicious beverage than 
for his mess of lentile pottage. 

The animals chiefly seen on the river's banks, are the camel, 
ass, and buffalo. The camel, which in the level valley of the 
Nile attains unusual size and stoutness of limb, is now the 
common beast of burden, both for agricultural and other pur- 
poses. It is singular, says Gliddon, that the introduction of 
this animal should have been comparatively recent. But it 
must doubtless have always existed in the interior of Asia ; it 
figured upon the sculptures of Nineveh, although not represent- 
ed on any Egyptian monuments of the pyramidal period. The 
horse, though not common on the monuments, appears in use with 
chariots after the twelfth dynasty. The Egyptian buffalo is of 
uncouth, unwieldy appearance, dingy black in color, the neck 
set lower than the back, and the head furnished with large flat 
horns thrown back like those of goats or sheep. Their aspect 
is sullen and ferocious, but, unless startled, they are perfectly 
gentle. You see them advancing along the bank with a small 
boy perched on their hump. They yield a considerable 
quantity of milk, and subsist on the coarse rushy grass which 
covers the dry bank of the river. Wilkinson observes, that he 
has met with no representation of the buffalo among the monu- 
ments, but from its being indigenous in Abyssinia and com- 
mon in the country, he infers that it was not unknown to the 
ancient Egyptians. Whole herds of these animals are seen, as 
before stated, in the heat of noon, so immersed in the river, 
that little but their noses and the tops of their heads are visible ; 
sometimes they slide fairly into it, and have to be rescued by 



the owner, who, plunging in, directs their 



heads against 



the 



THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 43 



rapid current, until they regain a footing. The ass, which in 
j Egypt is far superior in size and spirit to the neglected breed 
j in Europe, is used for riding by the lower . orders of the 
I natives, as well as by all Europeans who are not in the employ 
j of government. 

I While we thus find on the banks of the Nile animals not 

represented in the ancient sculptures, we find, on the other 
hand, that some plants conspicuous there have disappeared. 
Such is the rose-colored lotus, the beautiful form of which 
suggested the elegant shafts and capitals of the columnar archi- 
tecture ; and the invaluable papyrus, the paper of the ancient 
Egyptians. This disappearance has led to the belief that these 
and other plants found even now in Egypt, were not in- 
digenous in the lower Nile valley, but brought down the Nile 
from above Ethiopia, or elsewhere, by the former inhabitants of 
the country. 

Whence indeed came the ancient Egyptians themselves, and 
who are their descendants? are questions which have led to 
much discussion, and are by no means settled at the present 
day. The results of an examination of one hundred Egyptian 
crania, collected from different parts of Egypt, furnished by 
Mr. G. Gliddon to Dr. S. G. Morton of Philadelphia, seemed 
to establish that the predominant race was Caucasian in 
origin : out of fifty-five skulls, the Pelasgic, or purest type, 
being ten ; the Egyptian, which differs from the former in 
having a narrower and more receding forehead, and the facial 
angle more prominent, thirty ; and the remainder of a mixed 
and Negroid type of African derivation. This view of the 
Asiatic origin of the great race who settled in Egypt, might 
seem to be confirmed by the apparent progress of civilization 
from north to south, up the valley of the Nile, and by the fact 
that the most ancient monuments are found in Lower Egypt. 
Mr. Morton is said, however, to have altered his views, and to 
lean to the theory of an indigenous African race in the Nile 
valley, though in the course of ages a certain degree of modifica- 



r 



44 ARRIVAL AT CAIRO. 

tion would take place by fusion with the different races who con- 
quered Egypt — the Ethiopians, the Greeks and Romans, and 
the Arabians. This view is after all perhaps the most probable, 
for in all the sculptures there is more or less of a decidedly 
African type. The Copts are generally considered to be the 
most direct descendants of the ancient Egyptians ; while others, 
Dr. Morton, for instance, regard the present Fellahs as more 
justly entitled to this distinction. The opinion of an Ethiopian 
and not an Asiatic origin for the Egyptians and their civiliza- 
tion, has been maintained by many scholars ; and in accordance 
with this belief the pyramids of Meroe have been cited as 
earlier than those of Memphis, but recent examination has 
rectified this erroneous impression. 

After passing the fork of the Delta, where the Damietta 
branch of the Nile joins that of Rosetta, and the spot where the 
works of the ' barrage,' or plan for damming up the waters of 
the Nile, so as more effectually to irrigate the Delta, are now 
in operation, w^e first caught sight of the mighty pyramids. 
How familiar and yet how strange they appeared — hovering 
afar in dusky grandeur upon the edge of the yellow Libyan 
desert — overlooking the green valley of the Nile! Like the 
first far-off glimpse of the Alps, it is a sensation there is no 
describing nor forgetting. And soon after, ages apart as it 
were from these memorials of the early Egyptian kings, the 
fantastic minarets of Cairo, built by the Arab conquerors of 
their fallen empire, peeped forth, on the other side of the river, 
from amid a luxuriant mass of palm-groves and gardens, 
answering in every respect to our conceptions of a perfect 
oriental city, a few new factories built by Mehemet Ali 
being the only signs of modern innovation. Passing the pasha's 
villa at Shoubra, connected with the capital by a fine avenue of 
trees, we soon reached the busy quays of Boulak, the port of 
Cairo. The shore was lined with kiosques and coffee-houses 
full of indolent smokers, and crowds of camels and asses with 
most vociferous drivers. Vast heaps of corn, the wealth of the 



ARRIVAL AT CAIRO. 45 

Nile valley, lay upheaped ready for shipment, warehousing 
being unnecessary in this dry soil and clime. An immense 
number of barks, from the heavy Djerms, or cargo boats, to the 
light and graceful Kangias for passengers, lined the alluvial 
bank, or flitted up and down the river. Into the midst of these 
we thrust our pointed prow, got out our chattels, and, after 
much angry uproar, got them loaded upon a camel ; which 
business being at length happily over, I mounted a donkey, 
and galloped through the suburbs to Cairo. 



CHAPTER III. 



CAIRO. — SITUATION. — CHARACTERISTICS. STREETS. BAZAARS, ARABIAN MONUMENTS. 

MOSQUES. — GATES, TOMBS, AND PRIVATE DWELLINGS. 

Here then we are in " the Great Al Cairo," as Milton calls 
it, the city of Saladin and of the Arabian Nights, crea- 
tions which, once so fanciful and visionary, seem to kindle 
into life and'^reahty as we gaze upon every object that sur- 
rounds us. The apartment we sit in is decorated with mysteri- 
ous arabesque lattices instead of glass windows ; ample luxuri- 
ous divans heaped with cushions, replace our stiff chairs and 
sofas ; instead of the roll of coaches and the sound of bells, we 
hear but the solemn and mournful invocation to prayer from 
the balcony of some minaret, or the wild, shrill, guttural cries 
of the Arabian women accompanying a marriage or a funeral. 
Every sight and every sound reminds us that we are in the 
midst of a different race and different manners — associated with 
our earliest and most romantic impressions. 

The characteristic difference, as it seems to me, between 
Eastern and Western life, is the comparatively unalterable 
nature of the former. The population of our own land are 
constantly modified by the changes of flexible and advancing 
civilization. We look back two hundred years like antiquaries, 
to wonder at our picturesque ancestors. But the civilization 
and customs of the East, and the religion of the Koran, admit- 
ting no light from the growth of liberty or the diffusion of 
science, seem comparatively unsusceptible of change or modifi- 
cation ; and having once attained a fixed type, remain until the 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 47 

force of outward events brings about their inevitable downfall. 
Thus, though there may be a diminution of wealth, Cairo is, 
in all substantial respects, what it was at the first, and we seem 
to be looking back into the ages of Arabian power and 
splendor. What we now see of European life in this city, 
is rather, in truth, an accidental excrescence imposed from 
without, than any intrinsic alteration in the habits and manners 
of the people themselves. 

That Cairo is essentially an Arabian city, will appear from a 
few brief notices abridged from Wilkinson, of its history, and con- 
sequently that of Egypt itself, under the Saracens and their suc- 
cessors. Egypt, as stated in the Historical Introduction, was 
conquered from the Byzantine emperors by Amer, in 638, a. d. 
After taking the Roman Babylon, he founded near it a city and 
mosque, of which the arches are round, at Fostat or Old Cairo, 
on the banks of the Nile. Under the sway of the Ommiade 
and Abasside caliphs, the history of the province of Egypt pre- 
sents no facts of striking interest. In 868, Tooloon, governor of 
Egypt under the caliph, having thrown off his allegiance, and 
made himself master of the country, built eastward of Fostat a 
palace and mosque, which may be called the original nucleus of 
Cairo, and, with the surrounding quarter, is now enclosed 
within its walls. This mosque is distinguished as being among 
the earliest specimens of the jjointed arch, and as presenting the 
characteristics of early Arabian architecture. Tooloon's dynasty 
was but of short duration. El Moez, leader of the Fatimites, 
who had established a dynasty on the coast of Africa, dispatched 
his general, Goher, to invade Egypt, upon succeeding in which 
attempt he founded, in 923, the present city of Cairo, still fur- 
ther eastward of the mosque and quarter of Tooloon. Here- 
upon Moez established his residence at the new capital, which 
he delighted to beautify, and to him is due the original founda- 
tion of the venerable college of El Azhar. Passing over a long 
list of Egyptian Fatimite governors and their intrigues, we 
come at length to the era of the crusades and of Saladin, the 



48 HISTORY OF CAIRO. 

only great name connected with the annals of Cairo. He was 
the nephew of Shirkook, who, urging Noor-e-din, the Abasside 
caliph, to wrest Egypt from the Fatimites, eventually, through 
his assistance, obtained virtual possession of the country for 
himself. Hereupon Noor-e-din sought in every way to dis- 
possess him and his nephew, who, after the death of Shirkook, 
had succeeded to the post of vizier. This caliph, however, 
dying shortly after, Saladin openly threw off the yoke, and 
rendered himself the independent sovereign of Egypt and 
Syria. We need not dwell upon his well-know^n and glorious 
career ; suffice it to say, that he added largely to the city of 
Cairo, which, to insure against attack, he also surrounded with 
a stronger wall, inclosing the rocky spur of Mount Mokattam as 
a citadel. The city then assumed its present shape, although 
greatly beautified by the erections of subsequent rulers. Melek 
Adel, brother of Saladin, and hardly less valiant, to whom 
Richard Coeur de Lion proposed to give his sister in marriage, 
deposed his infant grandson, and seized upon the sovereignty, 
but died in a few years, on account, it is supposed, of the suc- 
cesses of the Christians, who had landed in Egypt and in- 
vaded Damietta. That place being at length taken, the 
crusaders advanced upon Cairo, but were cut off from supplies 
and obliged to capitulate. Still more disastrous was the issue 
of the sixth crusade, when Louis IX. was taken prisoner. 
Cairo ' the victorious' was never designed to fall into the hands 
of the crusaders. The Aioobite dynasty, that of the family of 
Saladin, was at length supplanted by the Baharite Memlooks, 
a valiant race of foreign and military slaves, who rose against 
their masters. " A more unjust and absurd constitution can not 
be devised," says Gibbon, " than that w^hich condemns the 
natives of a country to perpetual servitude under the arbitrary 
dominion of strangers and slaves. The most illustrious sultans 
of the Baharite (Tartar) and Borgite (Circassian) dynasties 
were themselves promoted from the Tartar and Circassian 
bands ; and the four and twenty beys, or military chiefs, have 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 49 

ever been succeeded not by their sons, but by their servants. 
With some breathing intervals of peace and order, the two 
dynasties are marked as a period of rapine and bloodshed, but 
their throne, however shaken, reposed on the two pillars of 
discipline and valor ; their sway extended over Egypt, Nubia, 
Arabia, and Syria, their Mamelukes were multiplied from eight 
hundred to twenty-five thousand horse, and their numbers 
were increased by a provincial militia of one hundred and 
seven thousand foot, and the occasional aid of sixty-six thousand 
Arabs." This powerful dynasty has now passed away, leaving 
but a great name in history, and a group of beautiful tombs 
fast falling into irretrievable ruin. The Baharite sultans, 
Baybers and Kalaoon, played a glorious part in the history of 
the crusades, the taking of Acre under the son of the latter 
resulting in a final abandonment of Syria by the Christian 
knights. Meanw^hile Saracenic architecture appears to have 
gradually attained its highest degree of perfection, for to this 
period belongs the beautiful mosque of Sultan Hassan, and 
the tombs of the Circassian Memlooks. This dynasty sup- 
planted the Baharite in 1382. The first of them. Sultan 
Berkook, was distinguished for his valor. El Ashraf Kaitbay 
in his turn made head against the growing power of the 
Turks, and obliged Sultan Bajazet to conclude a peace. The 
rule of the Circassian Memlooks was brought at length to a 
close by the defeat of Ghoreeh, and his successor, Toman Bey, 
by the Turkish sultan Selim, who, though he abolished the 
sovereignty, left, however, the Memlook aristocracy in con- 
ditional possession of Egypt. With the fall of the Memlook 
sultans terminates the historical interest of Cairo; for the in- 
trigues of their successors, until extirpated by Mehemet Ali, 
would be both tedious and unprofitable in a work of this light 
texture. Such is a brief sketch of the long period during 
which Arabian architecture grew up from extreme simplicity to 
the highest state of enrichment, while the Gothic was making 
similar progress in our own country and throughout Europe. 

7 



50 CAIRO — GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 

Cairo has been well described as occupying the natural 
center of Egypt. Hehopolis was only five miles below, and 
the site of Memphis not more than ten miles above the pres- 
ent capital. The position commands the approaches to Upper 
Egypt, and is upon the direct and natural thoroughfare be- 
tween the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. It is at present 
nearly three miles from the Nile, a branch of which however 
formerly flowed much nearer to it, and about twelve miles 
south of the upper or southern termination of the Delta. 
There the river is divided into two channels, through which its 
waters flow into the Mediterranean, one diverging to the north- 
west, the other to the north-east, thus giving a triangular form 
to the alluvial region below. Cairo is chiefly built upon the 
alluvial plain of the Nile, but the eastern part of the city rests 
upon the lower declivity of Mount Mokattam, a part of the 
long range which separates Egypt from the Desert of the Red 
Sea. Thus while from its northern and western gates you issue 
forth at once into the luxuriant verdure of the Delta, from its 
southern and eastern you plunge as suddenly into an arid 
wilderness. 

Thus much for the general situation. The city itself is the 
most completely Arabian one existing, having never received 
any foreign additions, unless by the Turks, though modern 
innovations are daily robbing it more and more of that char- 
acter, ilt is walled round and defended by a citadel on the 
towering crags of Mount Mokattam. Within, though here and 
there is an open square, it is one maze of narrow tortuous lanes ; 
the widest, with few exceptions, being barely sufficient to allow 
two laden camels to pass abreast — the narrowest scarcely one. 
Some quarters are almost forsaken. The mosques are thickly 
sown, and minarets in almost countless number spring up 
lustrously into the cloudless sky. The crowd is incessant, and 
the variety of costumes and character very curious. The 
bulk of the population are Moslem Arabians, with a handful 
of Turks, and a considerable number of Christian Copts, 




— Z^Z^^^^^''^'^'^'^''^' 



A STREET IN CAIRO 



STREETS OF CAIRO. 51 

a few Jews, and, as at Alexandria, a mixture of Eu- 
ropeans. 

We enter Cairo from Boulak by the great irregular square 
of the Esbequeeh, surrounded by houses and gardens. On 
one side extends the Copt quarter, gloomy and forbidding in 
its exterior as the people whom it harbors : on the other is 
that of the Franks ; here the most conspicuous object is the 
great 'Oriental Hotel,' called into existence by the require- 
ments of the overland passengers. Hence we follow a winding 
way into the heart of the city. On the right, at a short 
distance, is a new mad-house ; which, thanks to European in- 
fluences upon the naturally humane feelings of Mehemet Ali, 
has replaced the old ' Morostan,' with its horrors, which was so 
long a standing subject for description with Egyptian tourists. 
Here the streets get narrower and narrower, till we reach the 
penetralia of the city. Our illustration will convey a very fair 
idea of a Cairo street and of the throng that pours through it. 
As usual, in these narrow lanes, the lower part is in shadow. 
From a private garden a palm-tree, as is often the case, overhangs 
the narrow passage. The style of the houses, like that of our 
own old cities in the middle ages, consists of successive stories 
of latticed windows, overlying one another to the topmost 
story, till in the gloomy Jewish quarter they actually meet and 
interclasp one another. These lattices are so contrived as to 
admit a free view of the passengers, while those within are 
concealed from their most prying scrutiny. Over the door is 
generally some inscription of a religious character. On the 
left side of the view is one of the smaller ' Sibeels,' or public 
fountains, very numerous in oriental cities, and often origin- 
ating in the private benevolence of the Mussulmans. A 
peripatetic beggar, blind of one eye, is regaling himself with a 
glass of the pure element, and several girls are bearing jars 
for a supply. This group was sketched exactly as it stands, and 
is a fair sample of those that continually throng the ' Sibeel ;' 
for in a thirsty clime, like that of Egypt, water is the greatest 



52 CAIREEN LADIES. 

of all luxuries. Whoever pleases, says Olin, ascends the two 
or three steps from the street, takes a metal cup through an 
aperture in the gilt iron work, and drinks his fill; the cup, 
however, being fastened by a chain just long enough to allow 
the Arab to quench his thirst, without indulging another of his 
propensities quite as strong, and hardly less general. In the 
center of the view is an Arabian lady "riding the high ass," as 
Mrs. Poole calls it; she is seated after the manner of men 
upon a lofty upbuilt saddle covered with the richest carpets. 
The ass which she bestrides is one of the largest size, very 
carefully groomed, and full of spirit and vivacity, with an eye 
hke a gazelle's, quite realizing the " Sprightly" of the Arabian 
Nights. It is gaily adorned with tassels and trappings, and 
conducted through the press of the throng by a stout well- 
dressed servant. The lady herself is enveloped in a wrapper of 
rich black silk, which disguises her whole person, leaving only 
the face, which is half covered by a white muslin vail, conceal- 
ing all but the lustrous dark eyes, which seem to thrill through 
you in the dusky obscurity of the street. Sometimes you en- 
counter a whole harem thus mysteriously equipped, when the 
passengers studiously avert their looks, and carefully stand 
against the side walls to make way for them. Behind the lady 
advances a huge camel, laden with enormous burdens, which 
fairly clears the causeway. An encounter with one of these 
animals is indeed any thing but agreeable. Sometimes he is 
laden with water skins, wet and dripping upon the earth, 
sometimes with baskets of large square stones, and what is 
worst of all, wdth long dangling beams of timber which droop 
down and scrape the walls on either side. Heedless of all ob- 
struction, on he stalks with his slow, rolling, not unmajestic 
gait, leaving it to the rest of the passengers to accommodate 
themselves to his gyrations as they are best able,— not to be 
effected without much dexterity, and withal an occasional 
tumble. In addition to the aristocratic lady seen in the view, 
are some of the lower ranks on foot. Their gait and general 



BLIND BEGGARS. 



53 



appearance is majestic, but they will not bear close inspection. 
Their early beauty soon gives place to positive ugliness. 
Moreover, they tattoo their hands, arms, faces, and bosoms, and 
blacken, as indeed do all the women, their eyelashes with 
' kohl.' Their dress is a long simple wrapper of blue, or a 
species of plaid, very loosely hanging about them, and open at 
the bosom. It is often ludicrous enough, says Olin, to observe 
the studied care with which a girl covers her face with a frag- 
ment of a vail, or the corners of her tattered robe, while with 
the other she raises her drapery in the freest possible manner. 
Nothing seems to be regarded as a breach of modesty if the 
face be covered. To display that is regarded as an open proof 
of the abandonment of virtue. 

Our blind beggar is but a type of a class unhappily very 
numerous in Egypt. I have remarked that this class of men in 
the East have often a nobleness and resignation stamped upon 
their features which is quite touching ; the closing of the 
visual organs with which they commune with the external 
world, appear, as it were, to quicken their spiritual sense, and 
they seem as though they felt nearer to God, and more imme- 
diately dependent on his providence, than others. They are, 
if totally blind, generally led about by some poor boy, and in 
Constantinople they are always seated at the gates of the 
mosques. They are treated with great respect by the Mussul- 
mans, who, with that reverent spirit that runs through all their 
actions, regard every visitation of providence as entitling its 
object to their peculiar sympathy. Throughout Egypt the 
number of blind or half-blind persons is positively startling. 
Various causes have been adduced for this ; the continual 
glare of the sun, the subtle impalpable dust, which we have 
already enumerated as one of the prominent plagues of Egypt, 
and, as others think, the transition from the dry air to the moist 
vapors of the Nile. To these causes may be added the total 
want of precaution or common cleanliness. And as if the 
number of the blind from natural causes were insufficient, the 



54 THE BAZAARS. 

iron rule of Mehemet Ali has tended to increase it. In the 
hope of escaping the ruthless conscription by which the pasha 
recruited his armies, parents were led to deprive their children 
of one of their eyes. The pasha, however, was not to be 
balked of his prey, and, at the suggestion, it is said, of one of 
those Frank advisers, who sharpen by the Machiavelian ex- 
pedients of European intellect the lawless cruelty of oriental 
despotism, these unfortunate wretches, with a refinement of 
cruel irony, were organized into a one-eyed corps ! 

Through a labyrinth of these narrow streets we advance into 
the Bazaars. These, in an oriental city, are the great gathering 
place of the population, the center of traffic, the seat of flying 
rumors, and the lurking-place of secret conspiracies. They 
consist of one main avenue running through the center of the 
city, with endless and intricate branches, generally covered, and 
some of them sunk into a twilight obscurity. The crowd that 
pours through them is incessant. Each trade has its separate 
' sook' or quarter, and there are numerous ' Wekalehs' or 
Khans, for the reception of merchandise, large courts opening 
from the bazaars, surrounded with buildings, and defended by 
strong gates, which are kept closed at night. The whole scene 
is marvelously original ; every turn presents us with a fresh 
picture of oriental life and manners. Indeed, to wander at 
random about these bazaars is one of the most delightful things 
I am acquainted with. Charles Lamb remarks, that in his 
dreams he used to ramble through all the cities of the East, to 
mingle with their strange and turbaned crow^ds, with a sense of 
vivid delight quite indescribable. Something of this singular 
intoxication is experienced by him who for the first time visits 
the streets of Cairo. 

I have selected for representation a group sketched on the 
spot, at the door of a coffee-house. At a well-frequented corner 
sits a Jewish money-changer, whose sordid dress, black turban, 
and reddish hair, mark him out as one of that despised but 
still most influential race, w^ho often, in Eastern as in Western 



THE COFFEE-SHOP. 55 

lands, have moved in unsuspected obscurity the vital springs 
of the social and political machine. To ply his money-getting 
functions for the day he has issued from his quarter, the most 
horrible in Cairo, the narrowest, foulest, and most confined, 
and bearing in its ponderous and strong-barred gates, evidence 
of the painful insecurity of its detested yet envied inhabitants. 
He is engaged in transactions with a Turk, in which he will 
probably come off somewhat the gainer. The coffee-shop 
where he has planted himself is a fair sample of the very 
numerous ones which are found in every corner of the capital. 
They are small and without decoration, but the coffee, as pre- 
pared at the best of them, has, to the genuine amateur, an 
aroma not excelled, if equaled, in the first of Parisian cafes. 
Coffee and pipes are at once the universal stimuli as well as 
sedatives of the Orientals. Nothing can be got through without 
their influence. Besides what is consumed at the cafe, the 
negro servants may be seen all day long carrying to and fro 
small cups to the shopkeepers of the bazaars. A raised seat 
serves for the coffee customers ; here they sit and smoke, and 
here is offen seen assembled a group listening to the tale of a 
musician, who chants to them some ancient fragment of Arabian 
romance. The style of smoking is generally with the long, 
straight, cherry-stick pipe, which is very elegantly adorned 
with silk and tassels ; but some, like the figure in the sketch, 
prefer the more recherche Narghileh, consisting of a long 
flexible tube, inserted in a glass vase of water, somewhat soften- 
ing the narcotic inhalation. The back-ground displays one 
of the gates inclosing a particular part of the bazaar, through 
which and across the main avenue is a perspective into one of 
the aforesaid Wekalehs or Khans, with its interior courts, 
and a flitting phantasmagoria of caftaned and turbaned mer- 
chants. 

It was while standing to draw this coffee-shop, that I was 
struck by the appearance of a stranger, who alighted from his 
horse for a few moments on some matter of business with a 



56 SULEYMAN AGHA. 

neighboring shopkeeper. He answered remarkably well to 
Falstaff's description of himself — " a good portly man, i' faith, 
and a corpulent, of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most 
noble carriage, and, as I think, his age some fifty, or by 'r Lady, 
inclining to threescore." But it was his costume which pecu- 
liarly distinguished him from the surrounding throng. It was, 
in fact, the old costume of the murdered Mamelukes, the heavy 
turban, and voluminous inexpressibles, the cloth of which alone 
would have furnished forth a suit for any ordinary European. 
The materials were costly, and the entire effect strikingly 
picturesque, and even gorgeous. His mien and garb bespoke 
him no ordinary personage, and I gazed on him with curiosity 
and interest, but it was not for some time afterward that I 
ascertained who he really was. His name I found was Suley- 
man Agha, and he may well be called the " last of the Mame- 
lukes," at least of those who formerly held possession of Cairo. 
His story is very curious. He was, it seems, a personal friend 
of Mehemet Ali, at the time when the latter had secretly re- 
solved upon the extermination of his Mamelukes, who, as he 
knew, were plannincr to cut him off. The manner of their de- 
struction is probably known to the reader. The ceremony of the 
investiture of Toossoon Pasha with the command of an army 
served as the pretext for drawing them within the walls of the 
citadel, whence it was determined that they should never return 
alive. The snare was laid, the agents of destruction ready. 
The principal Mamelukes repaired for the last time in all their 
splendor to the fortress, and paid their congratulations to the 
pasha ; then "turned to take their leave. But the gates had 
been closed, and from every corner of the building a fire of 
musketry was opened upon them, till man and horse lay heaped 
in one promiscuous carnage. One indeed, and one only 
escaped, by leaping his horse over the wall at a spot where he 
had remarked a mound of rubbish ; the horse was killed, but 
his rider succeeded in making his way out of the city. Mean- 
while such of the Mamelukes who remained below were put to 



SULETMAN AGHA. 57 

death, and their houses sacked. When all was over, the pasha, 
who had not dared to intrust his favorite with the dangerous 
secret of his designs, deeply concerned at the loss of his Mame- 
luke friend, was lamenting his supposed death, when, to his 
surprise and joy, he suddenly appeared before him. Scarcely 
could Mehemet Ali believe his eyes, or sufficiently express his 
satisfaction, and he hastily inquired by what means Suleyman 
Agha had effected his escape from that terrible scene of 
carnage. The Mameluke told him that he had disguised him- 
self as a woman ; but this was too much for his Highness's 
belief; the portly frame and manly countenance of the Agha 
seemed to render such a metamorphosis impossible, and he 
frankly expressed his incredulity. Of this at the time the 
Mameluke took no notice, but several days afterward there 
appeared before his Highness a woman, clothed in the usual 
blue robe of the lower class of Arab females, with the long 
white vail concealing all but the eyes. She came to make a 
complaint against her husband, upon whose wrongs toward her 
she entered with all the volubiUty of a Caireen female. The 
case was clear, the judgment given in her favor, and a pun- 
ishment ordered for the delinquent husband ; when the sup- 
posed sufferer, throwing up her vail, inquired of the pasha if 
he was at length satisfied. It was no other than his old friend 
Suleyman. Great merriment ensued upon this eclaircissement, 
and the sole survivor of his slaughtered brethren has ever since 
been on the most cordial terms both with the pasha and the 
principal personages of Cairo. 

In the foreground of the view is seen a donkey-driver with 
his beast ; being, in fact, a portrait of the little familiar who 
habitually conveyed me about the city and its environs, and 
served me too in the office of a Cicerone. I have spoken of the 
admirable quahties of the Egyptian ass, of its strength, and 
spirit ; the difficulty, at least in the crowded streets of Cairo, 
being rather to restrain its rapid movements, which often 
bring one into peril of collision with a vailed lady or a loaded 



58 THE DONKEY-BOY. 

camel. The Caireen donkey-boy is quite a character, and mine 
in particular was a perfect original. He was small and spare 
of frame, his rich brown face relieved by the whitest of teeth 
and the most brilliant black eyes ; and his face beamed with a 
merry yet roguish expression, like that of the Spanish or 
rather Moorish boy in Murillo's well-known master-piece, with 
whom he was probably of cognate blood. Living in the streets 
from infancy, and familiar with all the chances of out-door life, 
and with every description of character ; waiting at the door of 
a mosque or cafe, or crouching in a corner of the bazaar, he 
had acquired a thorough acquaintance with Caireen life ; and 
his intellect, and I fear his vices, had become somewhat pre- 
maturely developed. But the finishing touch to his education 
w^as undoubtedly given by the European travelers whom he 
had served, and of whom he had, with the imitativeness of his 
age, picked up a variety of Httle accomplishments, particularly 
the oaths of different languages. His audacity had thus become 

consumhiate, and I have heard him send his fellows to 

as coolly and in as good English as any prototype of our own 
metropolis. His Mussulman prejudices sat very loosely upon 
him, and in the midst of religious observances he grew up 
indifferent and prayerless. With this inevitable laxity of faith 
and morals, contracted by his early vagabondage, he at least 
acquired an emancipation from prejudice, and displayed a 
craving after miscellaneous information, to which his Eu- 
ropean masters were often tasked to contribute. Thrown almost 
in childhood upon their own resources, the energy and persever- 
ance of these boys is remarkable. My little lad had, for instance, 
been up the country with some English travelers, in whose 
service he had saved four or five hundred piastres, (£4 or £5,) 
with which he bought the animal which I bestrode, on whose 
sprightliness and good qualities he was never tired of expatiating, 
and with the proceeds of whose labor he supported his mother 
and himself He had but one habitual subject of discontent, the 
heavy tax imposed upon his donkey by Mehemet Ali, upon 



Hi I I 11-1 Hill 



THE CAIREEN SHOPMAN. 59 

whom he invoked the curse of God, a curse, it is to be feared, 
uttered not loud but deep by all classes save the employes of 
government. His wind and endurance were surprising ; he 
would trot after his donkey by the hour together, urging and 
prodding it along with a pointed stick, as readily in the burn- 
ing sandy environs, and under the noonday sun, as in the cool 
and shady alleys of the crowded capital ; running, dodging, 
striking, and shouting with all the strength of his lungs through 
the midst of its labyrinthine obstructions. 

The water-carrier (to the left of the donkey-boy) is an old 
familiar figure, met with at every corner in Cairo. Notwith- 
standing the supply at the fountains, the purer element from 
the Nile is brought upon camels and asses into the city, and 
retailed in the manner here represented. 

The Caireen shopman is utterly unlike the same character in 
a western metropolis. He does but little business, and is in no 
sort of hurry over it ; he has, indeed, some difficulty to kill the 
time, even with the aid of pipe and prayers. Here is no 
fear of "tremendous competition," and no danger of an " early 
closing movement." Every thing jogs on in its old appointed 
way. The shopman takes his seat on his little carpet in the 
front of his open shop, fills his pipe, and smokes on steadily. 
Does a customer approach ? another pipe is presented and filled, 
and at intervals between the puffs, the negotiation is gradually 
carried forward. The vender begins by asking too much, and 
the purchaser by offering too little, and by the time the pipe is 
ended the difference is adjusted, and the bargain concluded 
" in the name of God." When the sonorous and somewhat 
mournful cry of the Muezzin thrills from the gallery of some 
neighboring minaret through the dusky recesses of the 
bazaars, the shopkeeper arises, and unconscious of, or at all 
events indifferent to observation, goes reverentially through 
the appointed round of prayer and praise. At intervals, per- 
haps, having no newspaper to keep him alive, he retails with 
his neighbor, or with a casual passenger, the rumors of the 



60 VIEW FROM THE CITADEL. 

passing hour ; or, overcome with drowsiness, takes a quiet nap 
upon his shopboard. A dish of * kabobs,' pieces of mutton 
seasoned with herbs, cut small, and cooked on a spit, a glass of 
water from the itinerant vender, or a cup of coffee from the 
nearest shop, constitute his daily repast. And thus he con- 
trives to wear away the listless hours till sundown. 

From the bazaars, by many a dim and winding street, there 
is a gradual ascent to the citadel, which stands on a bold spur 
of the bare sandstone mountain, through which indeed the road 
is partly cut. The walls are solid, and in some places from 
fifty to one hundred feet high. Passing through its entrance 
court, we come upon a terrace commanding one of the grandest 
prospects in the world. Cairo, with its countless numbers of 
carved domes and fantastic minarets, is taken in at a glance. 
To the eastward, in a secluded valley separated from the city, 
the long range of the tombs of the Memlook sultans stretches 
into the distant desert toward Suez. On the south extends 
the dense verdure of the Delta, a dark green streak which 
comes up abruptly to the edge of the yellow sands. There 
stood Heliopolis, the most learned city of Egypt, and there 
yet stands its obelisk, upon which Abraham may have gazed 
with curiosity as he entered that wonderful land. But it is 
to the westward that the chief glories of the scene expand ; the 
long range of the dusky pyramids, from the nearer ones of 
Ghizeh to those of Sakhara and Dashoor, standing in sublime 
serenity above the site of vanished Memphis, sole but most 
glorious relics of the pride and power of the early Egyptian 
kings of Lower Egypt ; pointing backward from an antiquity 
already hoary, through a long and dim vista of unknown 
monarchs, toward the unknown origin of civilization. They 
stand on the rocky edge of the boundless Libyan desert, over- 
looking the verdant valley of the Nile, with its variegated 
crops and scattered palm-groves and villages. Advancing 
nearer to the city, on the banks of the river peep up the 
minarets of Fostat or Old Cairo, marking the advent of another 




50 o 
o d 
a z 



mm 



VIEW FROM THE CITADEL. 



6] 



race, founded by the Arabs who conquered Egypt from the 
Byzantine emperors. The sohd wall of the Roman fort which 
so long resisted their efforts, is confounded with the surround- 
ing buildings and groves. The luxuriant island of Ehoda 
is half made out, and nearer at hand those portions of the city, 
which were successively added by later Arabian dynasties, as it 
gradually receded from the river, and took up its final position 
under the shelter of the Mokattam crags. Conspicuous in this 
now half-ruinous quarter is seen a large square court with a 
dome and minaret of singular formation, fast falling into decay. 
This is the mosque of Tooloon, the founder of a separate 
dynasty: it is remarkable as one of the earliest specimens of 
the pointed arch; and, to close this description, which is run- 
ning too much into diffuse detail, immediately below is the 
noblest mosque in the city, built some centuries later, when 
Arabian architecture had attained its highest degree of 
enrichment, by Hassan, a sultan of the Baharite Memlook 
dynasty. It is a landscape not only indescribably splendid to 
the eye, especially when the sun is sinking behind the pyra- 
mids, and flinging long rays of ruby luster aslant the Nile 
valley, to rest for a brief half-hour on the craggy crest of the 
citadel, and the arabesque fretwork of the lofty minarets ; but 
its soil is the strand of ages, upon which successive races, from 
Sesostris to Saladin, like wave chasing w^ave, have left the monu- 
mental races of their passage ; monuments too the more im- 
perishable as they recede further into the night of antiquity. 

To the traveler not merely anxious to dispatch the "sights" 
of Cairo, under the guidance of a loquacious Cicerone ; to the 
lover of art in all its variety of characteristic invention, in 
which the sense of the beautiful is developed in accordance 
with the pecuHar religion or social system of a people ; Cairo 
will present a peculiar attraction from its containing, with a few 
exceptions, the finest specimens of the Arabian architecture in 
its mosques, tombs, gates, and private houses, to be met with 
in any oriental city. 



62 THE POINTED ARCH. 

It is not easy at present to trace the origin and progress of 
this original and exquisite style. Like the Christian Gothic, 
which in some important particulars seems to resemble it, it 
might itself have been founded on the style of the Lower 
Empire ; indeed its earliest specimens, such as the mosque of 
Amer at Old Cairo, exhibit the round arch and detail without 
any original character ; bearing marks of the adaptation of an 
older architecture to a different purpose. It seems certain that 
the first specimens of the pointed arch are met with in Eastern 
buildings, and it is probable that the idea was transmitted to 
Europe by the crusaders. Sir Gardner Wilkinson, in a recent 
paper, expresses his belief that the ancient Egyptians were 
acquainted with the pointed arch, not constructed, Ijowever, on 
the true principle, but horizontally. We have heard the same 
opinion expressed by Mr. Catherwood. The first-mentioned 
learned writer also considers that the Christians w^ere the first 
in more modern times to adopt the pointed arch, and that the 
Moslems copied from them. Be this as it may, these early 
and perhaps imitative attempts of Arabian architecture, gradu- 
ally gave place to a style which may justly rank among the 
most original ever invented. Its different stages may be traced 
in Cairo, from the plain arches and grave simplicity of the 
mosque of Tooloon, up to the surpassing elegance of the 
tombs of the sultans and other monuments. There is one con- 
sideration which invests them with peculiar interest, namely, 
that the most beautiful of them are going rapidly to decay ; 
while a modern and corrupt imitation, entirely without merit, 
is supplanting the genuine one, retaining merely its leading 
arrangements, while all the peculiar distinguishing beauties 
are replaced by the most vapid and tasteless mixture of styles. 

In a remote part of the town^ formerly without the walls, is 
the mosque of Tooloon, the most ancient in the city, (already 
alluded to in the description of the view from the citadel, in 
which it appears,) at present in a very dilapidated and neglected 
state. It stands in an extensive open square, surrounded by 



MOSQUE OF TOOLOON. 



63 



cloisters on three sides, consisting of two rows of columns, but 
on the eastern of five, as appears in the accompanying illustra- 




tion. On entering from without we are struck by the grave 
and noble simplicity, and even elegance of effect; the square 
piers and flat rooms being relieved by the tasteful arches with 
their broad decorated border, which does not much resemble 
the later style called arabesque. It will be observed that the 
arch partakes of the horse-shoe form, inclining slightly inward. 
Wilkinson gives the date of this building 879, a. d., observing, 
that if not remarkable for beauty, it is a monument of the 
highest interest in the history of architecture, as it proves the 
existence of the pointed arch about three hundred years before 
its introduction into England, where that style of building was 
not in common use until the beginning of the 13th century, 
and was unknown before the year 1170. 

The singular twisted form of the minaret on the other side 
of the court will be remarked ; it has a spiral staircase outside 
leading to the gallery above. It is said that this originated in 



04 MOSQUE OF THE SULTAN HASSAN. 

the founder's wish to have it built in the shape of a piece of 
paper he happened to be twisting. The dome over the 
fountain in the center of the area is of later date than the 
arcades.* 

Near the citadel, at the corner of the open square of the 
Roomaylee, is the mosque of the sultan Hassan, conspicuous 
on the approach to the city, in some respects certainly the 
finest in Cairo, though the design is somewhat unequal and 
incongruous, and neither the dome nor minaret are at all equal 
in beauty to many smaller specimens ; the former somewhat 
resembling the clumsy style of those of Constantinople, built 
up with unsightly buttresses, instead of springing up gracefully 
from its foundation. Of the side next the square, a very good 
idea may be formed by referring to the view from the citadel 
in the foreground of which it appears. What is unique, and 
indeed unequaled, is the magnificent porch and the cornice 
above it; which, as the spectator comes up through the narrow, 
crowded street, called the Sook e Zullut, ' or arm bazaar,' strikes 
him with marvelous effect, towering to an amazing height, and 
displaying in its honeycomb tracery a noble breadth of design, 
with intricacy and richness of detail, which surpasses every other 
in the city, fine as some of them are. It is quite impossible to 
do justice to such a specimen in a small drawing ; and besides, 
the street is so narrow that only a side view can be obtained, 
yet the accompanying view will in some measure bear out these 
remarks. A peculiar effect, which cannot be imitated in the 
engraving, is produced by the black and red marbles with 
which portions are inlaid. This view also exhibits a very 
good specimen of the exterior of the houses of the old style, 
with their open galleries, and the elaborately fretted wood- 
work of their projecting windows and coverings, which produce 
a very picturesque effect, with the cafe below, overshaded, 
as is commonly the case, by an awning. The gateway leads 

* See Wilkinson for further details of this mosque. 




MOSQUE OF SULTAN HASSAN. 



A MARRIAGE PROCESSION. 65 

into a Khan. This is the main thoroughfare in the city, 
yet by taking one of the cane seats of a small cafe, I was en- 
abled to complete my sketch without the slightest interruption. 
In the foreground is to be seen one of the sights which the 
stranger is sure to encounter, however short his stay ; a ' zefFeh,' 
or preliminary marriage procession. The bride, whose dress 
and person are entirely concealed by a shawl, accompanied by 
one or two of her relations, advances beneath a gay-colored 
canopy of silk, borne by four men ; in front is a procession of 
her female friends, married and unmarried, the latter being 
distinguished by their white wrappers from the black silk ones 
worn by the former. The whole is preceded by a party of 
musicians playing on hautboys and drums, and in the case of 
the lower orders, accompanied by a peculiar cry of the women, 
called ' zughareet,' or rolling of the voice, expressive, with 
trifling modulation, either of joy or sorrow. The bride then 
repairs to the bath, other ceremonies, some of which are ex- 
tremely singular,* precede the union, which does not take place 
until the following night. 

The interior of the mosque of Sultan Hassan does not, at least 
to many, altogether fulfill the promise of the noble portal. A 
vestibule conducts into an open court, with a fountain, and 
four recesses covered by as many arches, which attract atten- 
tion from their unusual size and fine proportion. The recess on 
the east side as usual is deeper, and is surmounted by the lofty 
dome. The general aspect is one of severe and somewhat 
gloomy grandeur. Many are the legends connected with it. 

A curious contrast to the lofty entrance of the mosque of 
Hassan, the type of the greater number in the city, is presented 
by the gateway to the mosque of the Azhar, which will re- 
mind one, in many respects, of the Gothic portals of western 
Europe, though the detail is very dissimilar. There is another 
one at the opposite extremity of this extensive inclosure, which 
is almost entirely surrounded by houses, through which are 

* See Lane. ' 
9 



66 



THE EL AZHAR. 



narrow passages leading into the interior of the building, peep- 
ing through which, (for all entrance is, under ordinary circum- 
stances, interdicted to Frank travelers,) a view is obtained into 
the pillared avenues within, where in cool shadow^ are seen, 
lounging or flitting about, such a collection of Mussulmans from 
all parts of the East, in their varied costume, as strongl}^ 
although hopelessly, tempted my curiosity. I longed to mingle 
with so strange a congregation of gownsmen. This is considered 
the principal college of the East, and to receive the instructions 
of its professors in Arabian literature, students repair from all 
quarters, who are gratuitously supported. The funds of this 
establishment having been, like all the property belonging to the 
mosques, seized by the pasha, are' so much reduced that the 
professors have no longer any salary, and thus a heavy blow 
and great discouragement to the influence of the old Mussul- 
man system of education, necessarily fettered by the dogmas of 
the Koran, has been dealt, the effect of w^hich will probably be 
heightened by the introduction of European languages and 
ideas into the pasha's own schools. Indeed, the pious old 
Mussulman justly regards these as the ' last days' of Islam. To 
this college is attached an establishment for blind men, mostly 
students, who are described as peculiarly fanatical. Before 
the reduction of the revenues of this establishment, its charities 
were very great, and its walls afforded shelter to a vast multi- 
tude of poor. Mohammedan institutions are on the wane ; 
priests and professors, pillaged of their revenues, are sunk into 
sordid indigence, and zeal alarmingly on the decrease. 

The scene within the inclosure of this singular maze of 
buildings must be very striking. In going the round of the 
interior, says one who was privileged to explore it, " we found 
ourselves in the company of the people of Mecca or Medina, 
then in the midst of Syrians, in another minute among Muslims 
of Central Africa, next amid Moggrebyns or natives of North- 
ern Africa west of Egypt, then with European and Asiatic 
Turks, and quitting these we were introduced to Persians and 




-4 



BAB ZOOAYLEH. 



67 



Muslims of India. We were much affected by seeing many 
of the bhnd paupers who are supported at the mosque, bent 
double by age, slowly walking through the avenues of columns, 
knowing from habit every turn and every passage, and looking 
like the patriarchs of the assembled multitude." 

It is said that no less than forty thousand individuals par- 
took of the bounties of this establishment, and that on every 
alternate day three thousand eight hundred pounds of bread, 
and a quantity of oil for the lamps, were distributed. 

Outside, at the door of the mosque, is represented a group 
of donkeys with the ' Seis,' or groom, awaiting the return of 
some Arabian ladies from performing their devotions. A little 
boy is seen with his school-board, an old pilgrim is emerging 
from the sacred courts, and groups of students are lounging or 
reading the Koran within the shady retirement of the cloisters. 

The gates of Cairo, no less than the mosques and tombs, 
are among its noble specimens of Arabian architecture, and 
each has a peculiar aspect and physiognomy of its own. The 
Bab Zooayleh is now in the interior of the city, which, after the 
time of Saladin, was extended up to the citadel, so as to 
embrace the Kalat el Kebsh, or palace of Sultan Tooloon, near 
the ancient mosque already described. At present this gate 
stands in the most bustling and crowded part of the bazaar, at 
the intersection of the main avenue with another principal 
street, and with the adjacent mosque, whose elegant minarets 
rest upon it as a basement, and are among the most striking 
ornaments of this very picturesque portion of the city. The 
gateway itself bears so remarkable a resemblance to the Gothic 
portals of castles and towns in our own country, especially at 
York, that it might be supposed that the one had originated the 
other. Mr. Lane gives a curious account of a superstition con- 
nected with this gate, which is said to be one of the spots haunted 
by the Kutb, or most holy of the Welees, or saints of such high 
sanctity, that although not disembodied, and of the humblest 
appearance and garb, they are invested with certain super- 



68 



BAB ZOOAYLEH. 




natural powers, though undiscernible save to some chosen few. 
" One leaf of its great wooden door, which is never shut, turned 
back against the eastern side of the interior of the gateway, 
conceals a small vacant space, which is said to be the place of 
the Kutb. Many persons, on passing by it, recite the Fathah, 
and some give alms to a beggar who is generally seated there, 
and who is regarded by the vulgar as one of the servants of the 
Kutb. Numbers of persons .afflicted with headache drive a 
nail into the door, to charm away the pain, and many sufferers 
from the toothache extract a tooth, and insert it in a crevice 
of the door, or fix it in some other way, to insure their not 
being attacked again by the same malady. Some curious 
individuals often try to peep behind the door, in the vain hope 
of catching a glimpse of the Kutb, should he happen to be 



BAB E NUSR AND BAB E FOOTOOR. 69 

there, and not at the moment invisible." The turrets over this 
gate also serve the same purpose to which the similar portion 
of our own were formerly devoted, that of exhibiting the gory 
heads of criminals ; those of the slaughtered Mamelukes having 
been the last affixed upon it. 

In a totally different style, not in the least resembling the 
Western Gothic, are the Bab e Nusr and Bab e Footoor, near 
to each other, on the eastern side of the city. The former is 
remarkable for its chasteness of decoration and design ; it 
consists of two square towers and a round-headed gate. The 
latter is not perhaps equal to it in this respect, but is more 
strikingly grand. The two bold, advanced, half-circular tow- 
ers, in front of the broad portal, with its singular border of elab- 
orate ornament, combines massive and imposing grandeur with 
richness and elegance ; the masonry too is particularly fine. 

It is through the Bab e Nusr that the great caravan leaves 
the city on its departure for Mecca. This departure of the 
pilgrims is the principal spectacle of the metropolis, and 
still forms a scene of rude, fantastic splendor, but far in- 
ferior to what it once was, when the Memlooks themselves in 
their splendid costume, so ill replaced by the more modern but 
convenient dress, accompanied it forth with barbaric pomp and 
high solemnity. In the course of my subsequent wanderings, I 
was fortunate enough to meet with it on its march in the midst 
of the desert, where it is of course a far more impressive 
spectacle. 

Among the four hundred mosques in the city, many of 
which are in a state of decay, other beautiful specimens may be 
met with, but perhaps the utmost perfection and variety of this 
style of architecture seems to have been reached in the tombs, 
which are scattered without the walls on the south and east. 
Emerging from the crowded city by the Bab e Nusr, or Gate 
of Victory, the desert stretches from the very walls into the 
trembling haze of distance, and its dead and silent expanse 
receives an additional mournfulness of aspect from the ceme- 



70 TOMBS OF THE CIRCASSIAN" MEMLOOKS. 

teries which glitter and whiten in the burning sun, unshadowed 
by shrub or tree ; some with their gilt and gayly turbaned 
head-stones of yesterday's erection; others broken and half 
filled up with sand. Here the Bedouin, who love not the con- 
finement of walls nor the society of civilized man, establish 
themselves on their flying visits to the capital, crouching in 
the shade of the ruinous monuments, and raising their tempo- 
rary camp on the surrounding sands, in the midst of their 
recumbent camels. As you advance, the hum of the city, 
faintly ascending above its walls, dies away upon the ear ; high 
mounds of rubbish conceal the tops of its minarets, and, 
without inclosure of any kind, backed by hills of an aspect 
wildly desolate, these beautiful structures " rise like an 
exhalation" from the blanching waste. None, even the most 
indifferent, could behold without astonishment such erections 
in the bare and open wilderness, yet this adds not a little 
to the funereal impressiveness of the sight ; but when we ap- 
proach, and find how^ fast oblivion is gathering upon these 
moldering memorials of former greatness, and still greater 
genius, we might almost weep that such a fate must, at no 
great distance of time, befall monuments, which, in lands more 
enlightened, would be preserved as precious creations of art, 
which in their peculiar style have never been surpassed. 

The tombs extend for a considerable distance, and but a 
portion of them can be seen in the annexed illustration ; the 
most remote, quite isolated from the rest, is that of Melek Adel. 
The distant plains, expanding to the left of this monument, 
witnessed the final downfall of the Circassian Memlook dynasty, 
and the conquest of Egypt by the Turks. In the center of the 
view is one of the numerous tombs erected to the memory of 
Sultan El Ghoree, the last but one of this race of military 
princes. He perished in Syria, in battle against the Ottoman 
sultan, Selim, who marched immediately upon Egypt. Mean- 
while Toman Bey had been elected to fill the place of the 
unfortunate Ghoree, and prepared to meet the Turks, who, 



EL ASHRAF KAITBAY. 



71 



passing his advanced guards, marched directly upon Cairo by 
the plain of Heliopolis. Here the final encounter took place, 
the Memlooks, so often victorious, w^ere routed, and their 
fugitive leader was overtaken and brought back to Cairo, where 
he was hanged like a common malefactor upon the Bab 
Zooayleh. .Henceforth the Memlook aristocracy subsisted only 
as dependents upon the Porte, but they still maintained their 
hereditary prowess, till the strength of their brilliant cavalry 
was broken against the French squares at the battle of the 
Pyramids. Finally extinguished by Mehemet Ah, they have 
left but a romantic name in history, and these beautiful tombs 
fast moldering to irretrievable ruin. 

Among the largest and most beautiful is that of El 
Ashraf Aboo-1-Nusr Kaitbay e Zaheree, the nineteenth sultan 
of the dynasty of the Circassian Memlook kings, who died and 
was buried there in 1496, a. d.*' To this, as to the other tombs, 
a mosque has been attached, with various appendages, but 
these establishments are, I believe, ruined, and abandoned to 
poor Arab families and a solitary Sheik or two, who hover 
like ghosts about these splendid and moldering foundations ; 
and the whole neighborhood seems a resort of wandering 
Arabs, and of a rude and half-savage class of the population, 
who quarrel fiercely for the few piastres of the occasional 
visitor. The style of all the tombs is much the same, consist- 
ing of a square building, pierced with slender windows, and 
surmounted by domes, a peculiarity wanting to our Gothic 
architecture. Nothing can exceed the exquisite proportion of 
many of these, and the whole wealth of invention seems 
lavished on the fanciful net-work of arabesque tracery with 
which they are covered, of which each tomb displays a different 
pattern. The extraordinary variety of geometrical combination 
in Saracenic architecture, is one of its peculiar characteristics. 
Less somber and imposing than the Gothic, it surpasses it in 
symmetry and grace. The finest tomb is perhaps this of Sultan 

* Wilkinson. 



72 SULTAN BERKOOK. 

Kaitbay. The lofty minaret, with its successive stages, taper- 
ing gracefully to the summit, and connected by galleries, is a 
beautiful specimen of this unique invention of Mohammedan 
art in its highest enrichment, and the dome is perhaps un- 
equaled for its graceful proportion and its delicate detail, the 
whole producing an effect at once grave, elegant, and fanciful ; 
an original combination which no one at all affected by art, 
nor even one of ruder stamp, can possibly behold without a 
feeling of exquisite delight. 

E. 'Zaher Berkook, whose ashes repose within another fine 
mausoleum, was the first of the dynasty of Circassian Mem- 
looks, raised, as Gibbon informs us, by the favor of his mili- 
tary comrades from slavery and imprisonment to the throne 
of Egypt. He was a conspicuous actor at a stirring and 
momentous period. The redoubtable Timour had already 
overran Persia, Tartary, and India, when he was called 
back from his distant career of conquest by the informa- 
tion he received of the revolt of the Christians of Georgia, 
and the ambitious designs of the Turkish sultan, Bajazet, whose 
submission, and that of his Egyptian allies, he required in a 
tone of haughty and contemptuous menace. Bajazet returned 
scorn with scorn, while Berkook "braved the menaces, cor- 
responded with the enemies, and detained the ambassadors of 
the Mogul. The first engagement at Aleppo was favorable to 
the arms of Timour, who advanced with his destroying army as 
far as Damascus, where he was rudely encountered and almost 
overthrown by the armies of Egypt. A retrograde motion was 
imputed to his distress and despair: one of his nephews de- 
serted to the enemy, and Syria rejoiced in the tale of his defeat, 
when the sultan was driven by the revolt of the Mamelukes to 
escape with precipitation and shame to his palace at Cairo. 
The check thus received by Timour rolled back awhile from 
Syria and Egypt the devastating tide of conquest, although the 
fatal battle of Angora, fought two years afterward, delivered 
the Turkish sultan into the hands of the insulting victor; 




TOMB OF SULTAN KAITBAY 



HOUSES OF CAIRO. 7'3 

Astracan, Carizme, Delhi, Ispahan, Bagdad, Aleppo, Damascus, 
Smyrna, and a thousand other cities were sacked or burned, or 
utterly destroyed, but the timely submission of the Egyptian 
sultan, together with Timour's experience of the military 
prowess of the Memlooks and their leader, averted from Cairo 
the fearful visitation which had befallen so many other famous 
cities. 

To complete this brief sketch of the architecture of Cairo, 
I proceed to give a general description of the style of building 
adopted in private dwellings. Coolness, together with that 
seclusion required by the domestic habits of the Orientals, are the 
principal points which have been studied in all their arrange- 
ments. The foundation-walls are of stone, and the super- 
structure of brick ; the lower windows in those facing the 
streets are above the line of vision, even of persons on horse- 
back ; the windows of the upper stories project into the street, 
and are carried out and cased externally by wooden lattice 
work, sufficiently open to admit the air and light, which comes 
thus softly vailed into the interior, enabling those within to 
obtain a view into the street without, while they are themselves 
entirely concealed from the closest scrutiny of passengers, or 
even opposite neighbors. In addition, these windows are 
generally shaded by a projecting cornice of carved wood-work, 
casting deep shadows over the front, of graceful and ornamental 
patterns, as may be seen in the different views. In the narrower 
streets these nearly or quite meet, but in new houses they are 
being gradually lessened, while the rich and raised carving is 
giving place to glass and lattice of a simpler character, so that 
by degrees the picturesque aspect of the streets will be much 
impaired. A winding passage usually leads through the 
ornamented doorway into a court, into which the apartments 
look, with doors conducting to the harem — the upper apart- 
ments, exclusively occupied by the women and children, with 
the master. In the court is generally " a well of slightly 
brackish water, which filters through the soil from the Nile ; and 

10 



^4 INTERIOR OF A HOUSE. 

on its most shaded side are commonly two water-jars, which are 
daily replenished with Nile water, brought from the river 
in skins."* There is sometimes also a palm-tree. 

The principal apartment on the ground-floor is called a Man- 
darah, and in the older style of houses is often very splendid. 
I have selected for representation one of unusual size and rich- 
ness of decoration, in a house formerly occupied, I believe, by 
one of the murdered Mamelukes, and now abandoned to decay, — 
not far from the Frank bazaar. It was melancholy to behold its 
fountains dry, its marble pavement broken up, rich inlaid 
cabinets and mazy arabesques — such as are not to be met with 
in these degenerate days, falling to pieces with neglect ; the 
stained glass of its windows broken, the wild herbs of the 
garden straggling into the apartment, and its unfurnished di- 
vans heaped with rubbish ; while the spider wrought its web 
undisturbed among the fantastic intricacies of the tracery. Some I 
dismal story seemed to be connected with it, — one might have 
fancied it the chosen abode of the Jinns and Efrits of Arabian i 
romance. The entrance, on the right hand, is by the door 
covered with minute and elaborate carving. The middle part I 
of the room is lower than the rest, and is called a durka'ah, ; 
which, with the fountain in the center, is paved and inlaid with \ 
\ marble of different colors. To the right of this, on the wall, is I 
also a sloping marble slab with stair-like edges, over which the ! 
water pours and trickles, thence passing by pipes into the | 
basin of the fountain. This is a common Saracenic device, and I | 
i remember to have seen it in Palermo, but is not in use in ! 
I modern Egyptian houses, at least it is not mentioned by ! 
: Lane. The raised part of the room is called a " leewan,"t 
! paved with common stone, and covered with mats in summer and | 
carpets in winter ; this is unusually extensive in the apartment : 
j before us : it is surrounded by a divan, or low seat continued 
I round the walls, covered like a sofa, and with long cushions 
: resting against the wall for the entire length, sometimes with 

i . * Lane. f Lane. j 

1 ! 



o 




INTERIOR OF A HOUSE. 



75 



Others m the angles : these are all covered with materials in 
richly ornamental patterns more or less expensive. The roof- 
ing of the " leewan," as will be observed, is supported by 
carved beams, which with the intervening flat space are decor- 
ated and gilt in the richest manner. Of the windows, some are 
glazed, and are richly ornamented with stained glass, represent- 
ing flowers, fruits, and fanciful objects ; others, looking into the 
verdure of the garden, have simply open lattice or iron work. 
A remarkable and picturesque peculiarity is the decorated 
lantern above the fountain, made to open and shut at pleasure 
by means of a string, serving for the admission of air. A 
common device for this object is a sloping shed of boards above 
an opening seen on the roofs of the houses, serving to direct the 
current of wind into the apartments below. A similar plan 
for the same purpose was adopted by the ancient Egyptians. 

In the lateral recesses of this extensive room are diflerent 
cupboards, or rather cabinets, fancifully inlaid with pearl, and 
having small panels of delicate and intricate carving ; while the 
flat spaces of the wall above are painted in the grotesque 
style resembling the devices on old tapestry, with representa- 
tions of kiosques and other objects, very badly executed. 

It is in the Mandarah that the master receives his guests, 
who, slipping off their outer shoes of red on the floor of the 
leewan, step up in their yellow slippers without soles, which 
are worn under them, to the apartment above, and take their 
seats on the divan : whereupon pipes and coflfee are always 
brought for their refreshment. 

The arrangements of the harem or upper apartments of the 
family are minutely described in the work of Mr. Lane. In the 
larger houses it always comprises the luxury of a bath. 

Haunted houses are not uncommon in Cairo ; the Jinn or 
Genii, who figure in the Arabian Nights, being the most dread- 
ed visitants. During the month of Ramad'han, these Jinn, Mr. 
Lane tells us, are supposed to be confined in prison ; and hence, 
on the eve of the festival which follows that month, some of the 



M 



76 EGYPTIAN SUPERSTITION. 

women of Egypt, with the view of preventing these objects 
from entering their houses, sprinkle salt upon the floors of the 
apartments, saying as they do it, " In the name of God, the 
Compassionate, the Merciful." 

A curious relic of ancient Egyptian superstition may here 
be mentioned. It is believed that each quarter in Cairo has 
its peculiar guardian genius, or Agathodaemon, which has the 
form of a serpent. The ancient tombs of Egypt, and the dark 
recesses of the temples, are commonly believed by the people of 
this country to be inhabited by Efrits. 

The term Efrit is commonly applied rather to an evil Jinneh 
than any other being : but the ghosts of dead persons are also 
called by this name ; and many absurd stories are related of 
them ; and great are the fears which they inspire. 

One of these stories is really so remarkable that we shall 
venture to quote a short account of it from the excellent 
work of Mrs. Poole, the sister of Mr. Lane, the well-known 
Arabic scholar, with whom she was then residing. 

" After having searched for a habitation during a month in 
vain, we were delighted with the offer of an exceedingly good 
one, which appeared in every respect eligible, and in which we 
are now residing. But our domestic comfort in this new abode 
has been disturbed by a singular trouble, which has obliged us 
to arrange as soon as possible for a removal. The house is an 
admirable one, being nearly new, though on the old con- 
struction. 

" We w^ere much surprised, after passing a few days here, 
to find that our servants were unable to procure any rest during 
the night ; being disturbed by a constant knocking, and by 
the appearance of what they believe to be an Efrit. The man- 
ner of the servants' complaint was very characteristic. Having 
been much annoyed one morning by a noisy quarrel under 
our windows, my brother called one of our servants to ascertain 
how it had arisen, when he replied, 'It is a matter of no 
importance, O Efendi ; but the subject which perplexes us 



MRS. POOLE'S STORY. 



77 



is, that there is a devil in the bath/ My brother being aware 
of their superstitious prejudices, replied, ' Well, is there a 
bath in the world that you do not believe to be a resort of evil 
spirits, according to the well-known tradition on that subject ?' 
'True, O my master,' rejoined the man, 'the case is so; this 
devil has long been the resident of the house, and he will never 
permit any other tenant to retain its quiet possession for many 
years ; no one has remained more than a month within these 
walls, excepting the last person who lived here, and he, though 
he had soldiers and slaves, could not stay more than about 
nine months ; for the devil disturbed his family all night.' I 
must here tell you that during our short stay in the house, the 
maids have left us, one after another, without giving us any 
idea of their intentions, and have never returned ; and the 
cause of their sudden disappearance was now explained by the 
men, their fellow-servants. 

" It appeared, on inquiry, that the man to whom this house 
formerly belonged, and who is now dead, had, during his 
residence in it, murdered a poor tradesman who entered the 
court wdth his merchandise and two slaves : one of these (a 
black girl) was destroyed in the bath, and you will easily under- 
stand how far such a story as this, and a true one too, sheds its 
influence on the minds of a people who are superstitious to a 
proverb. 

" Ramad'han arrived, and we were for a time freed from his 
visitation ; but when it ended, the comparative quiet of our 
nights ended also. To describe all the various noises by which 
we have been disturbed is impossible. Very frequently the 
door of the room in which we were sitting late in the evening, 
within two or three hours of midnight, was violently knocked 
at many short intervals : at other times it seemed as if some- 
thing very heavy fell upon the pavement close under one of the 
windows of the same room, or of one adjoining ; and as these 
rooms were on the top of the house, we imagined at first that 
some stones or other things had been thrown by a neighbor, 



'8 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 



but we could find nothing outside after the noise I have 
mentioned. The usual sounds continued during the greater 
part of the night, and were generally like a heavy trampling, 
like the walking of a person in large clogs, varied by knocking 
at the doors of many of the apartments, and at the large water- 
jars, which are placed in recesses in the galleries. Our maids 
have come and gone Hke shadows ever since our residence 
here, excepting during Ramad'han ; and sauve qui pent seems 
to have been their maxim, for they believe that one touch of an 
Efrit would render them demoniacs. 



" A few days since, our door-keeper, a new servant, com- 
plained that he not only could not sleep, but that he never had 
slept since his arrival more than a few minutes at a time, and 
that he never could sleep consistently with his duty, unless the 
Efrit could be destroyed. He added, that he came every night 
into the upper gallery, leading to our sleeping-room, and there 
he found the figure I have mentioned, walking round and 
round, and concluded wdth an anxious request that his master 
would consent to his firing at the phantom, saying that devils 
have always been destroyed by the discharge of fire-arms. We 
consented to the proposal, provided he used neither ball nor 
small shot. Two days and nights passed, and we found on the 
third that the door-keeper was waiting to ascertain whether 
the specter were a saint or a devil, and had therefore resolved 
to question him on the ensuing night before he fired. 

" The night came, and it was one of unusual darkness. We 
had really forgotten our recent intentions, although we w^ere 
talking over the subject of the disturbances until near midnight, 
and speculating upon the cause in the room where my children 
were happily sleeping, when we were startled by a tremendous 
discharge of fire-arms, which w^as succeeded by the deep hoarse 
voice of the door-keeper exclaiming, ' There he lies, the ac- 
cursed !' and a sound as of a creature struggling and gasping 
for breath. In the next moment the man chilled loudly to his 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE, 79 

fellow-servants, crying, ' Come up, the accursed is struck down 
before me !'" and this was followed by such mysterious sounds 
that we believed either a man had been shot, and was in his 
last agony, or that our man had accidentally shot himself. 

" My brother went round the gallery, while I and my sister- 
in-law stood, like children, trembling hand in hand, and my boys 
mercifully slept (as young ones do sleep) sweetly and soundly 
through all the confusion and distress. It appeared that the 
man used not only ball cartridges, but put two charges of 
powder, with balls, into his pistol. I will describe the event, 
however, in his own w^ords : — ' The Efrit passed me in the 
gallery and repassed me, when I thus addressed it, ' Shall we 
quit this house, or will you do so ?' ' You shall quit it,' he 
answered ; and, passing me again, he threw dirt into, my right 
eye. This proved he was a devil,' continued the man, ' and I 
wrapped my cloak around me and watched the specter as it 
receded. It stopped in that corner, and I observed its appear- 
ance attentively. It was tall, and perfectly white. I stooped, 
and before I moved again discharged my pistol, which I had 
before concealed, and the accursed was struck down before me, 
and here are the remains.' So saying, he picked up a small 
burned mass, which my brother showed us afterward, resembling 
more the sole of a shoe than any thing else, but perforated by 
fire in several places, and literally burned to a cinder. This the 
man asserted was always the relic when a devil was destroyed, 
and it lay on the ground under a part of the wall where the 
bullets had entered. The noise which succeeded the report, 
and which filled me with horror, is and must ever remain a 
mystery. On the following morning we closely examined the 
spot, and found nothing that could throw light on the subject. 
The burned remains do not help us to a conclusion , one thing, 
however, I can not but believe, that some one who had person- 
ated the spirit suffered some injury, and that the darkness 
favored his escape." 

This story so remarkably resembles one told by the diflferent 



80 ADVENTURE AT DAMASCUS. 

members of the Wesley family, that it might almost be taken 
for an oriental version of it, with the sole difference of the 
catastrophe in the latter. And what is curious in both in- 
stances, the cause of the mysterious noises appears to have 
eluded all research. We should observe, that Mr. Lane was at 
length compelled to leave the haunted house, and the next 
comer was even more tormented. 

We have had some very lively descriptions of the interior of 
the harem, and of the habits of its fair inmates, from EngHsh i 
ladies who have been admitted, but particularly from Mrs. Poole. 
But I never met in Cairo with any parallel to the following 
curious adventure which befell me some years since at Damascus, 
and which is not without interest here, as it is an infraction of 
Mohammedan custom in both cities, of which I never re- 
member to have heard another instance. 

It should be observed that the inhabitants of Damascus have 
always enjoyed the distinction, so honorable to the more 
orthodox Moslem, of being, after those of Mecca, the most 
special haters of the Giaour; and this pious and proper aver- 
sion has been increased and kept alive by the annual passage of 
the great Mecca caravan. Every body knows the Turkish 
proverb — " If thy neighbor has been once to Mecca, have a 
care of him; if twice, deal not with him; but if three times, 
avoid him as thou wouldest the plague of Allah !" The native 
Christian inhabitants were always under the harrow, and but 
one single and obscure European agent had ever been able, 
hitherto, to naturalize himself. The visits of travelers, 
although made in the most rigorous oriental garb, were always 
attended with risk. Frankland, though he travestied himself 
in robe and turban, could not disguise his dog, a wiry little 
English terrier, which was assaulted by the Damascene curs, 
and, but that his master seized and rolled him up in his 
garments, and rode off with him to the Latin convent, followed 
by a host of howling enemies, would have led to his detection 
and insult. Even so late as the time of Lamartine, " the Frank 



AN ADVENTURE AT DAMASCUS. 81 

Emir," with his imposing cortege, the same precautions were 
needful ; and thus it may be supposed that it was not without 
some twinging apprehensions that I prepared to make my 
soUtary entry in the obnoxious European costume. 

My visit however " had fallen" on good and not on " evil 
times," upon an era of change indeed remarkable and momen- 
tous, not only for its immediate, but for its far- stretching con- 
sequences, and distinguished for the first insertion into the old 
Mussulman fabric of the wedge of European civilization. The 
Turkish power was broken ; the Egyptian flag waved upon the 
walls of Damascus, planted there, too, far less by the brute 
valor of the troops of Mehemet Ali, than by the tactics of 
those French generals (an ominous circumstance, and well 
deserving the closest attention of our statesmen) who had 
originally formed and who in reality commanded them. 

When the rapid victories of Ibrahim Pasha had made him 
master of Syria, and given him the sudden possession of 
Damascus, and when he came to establish there his impartial 
system of administration, by which the Christians could no 
more (as by immemorial usage had been their lot) be trampled 
upon by the haughty Mussulmans, it was deemed a fit season to 
establish, if possible, an English consulate in so important a 
station. After much opposition, Mr. Farren at length entered 
upon this post with every mark of honor from the local 
authorities, and by his conciliatory manners soon contrived to 
render himself extremely popular among the higher classes. 
Still, the state of Syria was uncertain and convulsed ; a reverse 
of the pasha's success would bring back into fierce reaction all 
the Mussulman intolerance ; and sudden reprisals on the Chris- 
tians were apprehended, in whose fate Europeans would natu- 
rally be involved. They were thus in a constant state of jeopardy ; 
and although the consul had a town house, he lived in the 
suburb of Salaheyih, whence in case of a popular outbreak he 
might easily make good his escape to the mountains. The day 
after my arrival we visited the city. As our horses clattered 

11 



82 



AN ADVENTURE AT DAMASCUS. 



through the narrow streets, the crowd silently made way for 
us, and curses, not loud, but deep, were no doubt muttered 
in the choicest Arabic. Many a filthy dervish, pale with 
suppressed hate, looked daggers as we passed him by. 
While such was the sullen fanaticism of the populace, 
only restrained by the arms of Ibrahim, another spirit was 
gaining ground among certain of the higher classes. The 
notorious indifference of the pasha himself to the Moslem in- 
stitutes, and the liberalism of his European officers, which had 
infected also the native ones, began to influence certain of the 
Mussulman aristocracy; and, as extremes commonly meet, 
while the populace were ready to tear to pieces the Giaours 
who dared to insult their streets in the odious hat and European 
dress, some of the higher illuminati took a secret pleasure in 
showing their emancipation from the prejudices of their fore- 
fathers. Of this class, principally, were the visitors to the 
consul's house. I was on one occasion engaged in drawing the 
costume of a native female servant, when a man of some dis- 
tinction entered, a Moollah of high descent, claiming as his 
ancestor no less a personage than the father of Ayesha, the 
favorite wife of the prophet himself His demeanor was 
exceedingly grave and dignified, and, as I afterward remarked, 
he was saluted in the streets with singular respect. His amuse- 
ment was extremely great as he saw the girl's figure rapidly 
transferred to paper; he smiled from time to time, as if oc- 
cupied with some pleasant idea, of which at length he delivered 
himself, expressing his wish, to our infinite surprise, that I 
should come to his house in company with the consul, and take 
a drawing of his favorite wife. It may be supposed that so 
singular an invitation, one so opposed to every Mussulman preju- 
dice, and even established custom, much amused and excited us. 
At the appointed hour we repaired to the old Moollah's abode. 
Externally, unlike the houses of Cairo, it presented nothing but 
a long dark wall upon the side of a narrow dusty lane ; within, 
however, every thing bore testimony to the wealth and luxury 



AN ADVENTURE AT DAMASCUS. 83 

of its owner. The saloon into which we were ushered was 
spacious and splendid, marble-paved, with a bubbling fountain 
in the midst, and a roof supported on wooden beams highly- 
enriched and gilt in the arabesque fashion. A large door, 
across which was slung a heavy leathern curtain which could 
be unclosed and shut at pleasure, similar to those adopted in 
Catholic churches in Italy, opened on the court, from which 
another communicated with the mysterious apartments of the 
harem. We seated ourselves on the divan, — our host shortly 
entered, smiling at his own thoughts as before ; he doffed his 
turban and pelisse, retaining only his red cap and silk jacket ; 
he rubbed his hands continually, his eyes twinkled, and he 
seemed to abandon himself entirely to the merry humor of the 
moment. A few words had hardly passed before the curtain 
was gently pushed aside ; the lady, like a timid fawn, peeped in, 
then, closing the curtain, advanced a few steps into the room, 
watching the eye of her husband; who, without rising, half 
laughing, yet half commanding, beckoned her to a seat on the 
divan, while we, our hands on our bosoms in the oriental 
fashion, bent respectfully as she came forward and placed herself 
between the old Moollah and Mr. Farren. Speaking Arabic well, 
the latter was enabled to commence a conversation, in which, 
after some slight hesitation at this first introduction to mixed 
society, the lady appeared to bear her part with much ease and 
vivacity. This delighted her husband, who could hardly help 
expressing his satisfaction by laughing outright, so proud was 
he of the talents of his wife, and so tickled with the novelty of 
the whole affair. While this was going forward, I observed 
that the curtain of the door was drawn aside by a white hand, 
but so gently as not at first to attract the attention of the 
Moollah, (who sat with his back toward it,) and a very lovely 
face, with all the excitement of trembling curiosity in its laugh- 
ing black eyes, peered into the apartment, then another, and 
another, till some half-dozen w^ere looking over one another's 
shoulders, furtively glancing at the Giaours, in the most earnest 



84 AN ADVENTURE AT DAMASCUS. 

silence, and peeping edgeway at the old fellow, to see if they 
were noticed ; but he either was or affected to be unconscious 
of their presence, while the consul and myself maintained the 
severest gravity of aspect. Emboldened by this impunity, and 
provoked by the ludicrous seriousness of our visages, they be- 
gan to criticize the Giaours freely, tittering, whispering, and 
comparing notes so loudly, that the noise attracted the attention 
of the old man, who turned round his head, when the curtain 
instantly popped to, and all again was silent. But ere long, 
these lively children of a larger growth, impelled by irresistible 
curiosity, returned again to their station — their remarks w^ere 
now hardly restrained within a whisper, and they chattered and 
laughed with a total defiance of decorum. The favorite bit 
her lips, and looked every inch a Sultana at this intolerable 
presumption ; whereupon the old man gravely arose and drove 
them back into the harem, as some old pedagogue would a bevy 
of noisy romps. Delivered from this interruption, the lady, at 
a sign from her liege lord, proceeded to assume the pose re- 
quired for the drawing. She had assumed for this occasion her 
richest adornments ; her oval head-dress was of mingled flowers 
and pearls, her long, closely-fitting robe, open at the sleeves and 
half-way down the figure, was of striped silk, a splendid shawl 
was wreathed gracefully around the loins, and a rich short 
jacket was thrown over the rest of her attire ; her feet were 
thrust into embroidered slippers, but the elegance of her gait 
was impaired by her walking on a sort of large ornamented 
pattens some inches from the ground. It may be supposed I 
did not keep the lady standing longer than was absolutely 
necessary. When I had finished, our host, with a smile of 
peculiar significance, directed her attention to a small carved 
cupboard, or cabinet, ornamented with pearl, from which she 
proceeded to draw forth — mirahile dictu ! — a glass vessel con- 
taining that particular liquor forbidden to the faithful ; and 
pouring it out in glasses, handed it to us all, then, at her hus- 
band's suggestion, helped herself, and, as we pledged one 



AN ADVENTURE AT DAMASCUS. 85 

another, the exhilaration of our pious Mussulman entertainer 
seemed to know no bounds. At the loud clapping of hands, a 
female slave had entered with a large tray covered with the 
choicest delicacies of Arab cookery — chopped meat rolled up 
in the leaves of vegetables, and other and more recherche dishes, 
of exquisite piquancy of flavor ; this was placed before us on 
a small stool, together with spoons for our especial use. To 
complete our entertainment, we were favored with a specimen 
of the talents of an Almeh, or singing woman, confounded by 
so many travelers with the Ghawazee, or dancing girls. In 
long low strains she began to chant a lugubrious romance, 
probably some tale of hapless love and woe ; her monotonous 
cadences would have driven Hotspur mad, worse than 

" To hear a brazen can' stick turn'd, 
Or a dry wheel grate on an axletree ;" 

but as the story proceeded, the lady appeared rapt, the tears 
filled her eyes, and she exhibited every sign of the deepest 
emotion ; so different are the modes by which the same 
universal feelings may be affected. 

Shortly after, we took our leave. On my way home, I could 
not but remark to Mr. Farren, that the favorite wife of our 
host was by no means equal in point of beauty to some of her 
less privileged inmates of the harem. He repHed that he had 
also noticed this, and mentioned it to the old Moollah, who had 
frankly explained the reason of his preference. She alone, he 
said, could devise amusement for him, converse with him, and 
lighten the monotony of his vacant hours. Perhaps too she 
was no less skilled in those peculiar arts which form the study 
of oriental women ; for, however some may delight to paint the 
life of the harem ' en beau,' we suspect it is but a sad mixture 
of mere ennui and sensuality. 

There are numerous interesting excursions to be made from 
Cairo. The pleasantest are to Shoubra, Rhoda, Heliopolis, 



86 SHOUBRA AND RHODA. 

and the pyramids, which I shall notice in their turn. In 
this burning climate, and dusty soil, it is no wonder that the 
imagination of an Arab paints tranquil repose in a latticed 
kiosque, by the side of trickling waters, and under the shade of 
scented gardens, with perhaps the addition of an Houri or two, 
as the greatest of all earthly delights. It is difficult to form 
an idea of the absolute craving of a northern traveler for a 
wholesome bit of green sward, with a bubbling runnel of 
water, a common field, with hedge-row elm and hillock green, 
to relieve the eternal drought, and dust, and sultriness. But 
these things are impossible in Egypt. In the hope of some- 
thing in the shape of grass, I mounted my donkey and 
galloped one day to the pasha's kiosque and gardens at Shoubra, 
beneath a fine avenue of trees completely overshadowing the 
road which runs pleasantly near the Nile. The gardens are 
extensive, and well kept, consisting of long green avenues 
paved with pebbles, and bordered with rows of exotics, which 
exhale the most delicious odors ; here and there are foun- 
tains prettily ornamented, and overhung with trees,, refreshing 
enough after coming from Cairo. There is a very extensive bath, 
and a kiosque overlooking the garden, which is a favorite re- 
treat of the late pasha's. It is pleasant enough to while away an 
hour or two here, but a far prettier place is Rhoda, an island in 
the Nile, opposite Old Cairo, where, under the direction of 
Mr. Trail, an English master gardener, who has a pretty 
bower himself among these shades of his own creation, gardens 
of great beauty have been realized. The situation is happy, 
the Nile adding much to the landscape, and one wanders half 
enchanted among irregular, shady bosquets of the most delicious 
fragrant trees, and shrubs, and brilliant flowers, through which 
peeps are obtained upon the river, with its flitting white sails, 
and the distant pyramids. Nor are the decorations of art want- 
ing ; for there is also a very pretty building, with a shell-paved 
grotto, and a small piece of water. I repeatedly visited this 
place, and took the greatest delight in its verdant alleys ; yet 



MOSQUE OF AMR. KASR ES SHEMA. 87 

something I thought was deficient, my ideas of a perfect oriental 
garden were not reahzed. I wanted to see a wilderness of 
rustling shades, overarched by the immense green leaves of the 
banana, and the tall, rustling palm, with dense thickets of other 
trees, intermingled with an infinite variety of those delicious 
exotics, covered with brilliant flowers, which makes the sense 
ache with their 'voluptuous fragrance ; a perfect paradisaical 
bower, such as might be created from the rich elements of east- 
ern vegetation, with kiosques of the genuine Arabian architec- 
ture, and fountains which might maintain perpetual coolness. 
Of such I have often dreamed among the alleys of Rhoda. 
These beautiful gardens were formed at the expense of the late 
Ibrahim Pasha, whose palace and harem are on the opposite or 
Cairo bank of the channel, buried in trees and gardens, which 
extend all the way to Cairo, in place of the old dust heaps which 
formerly stood near, and which were removed by his orders. 
These are indeed noble improvements. 

Between Rhoda and Cairo is a dreary, half-desert region, 
where however there are various objects of interest which may 
be glanced at on the way back. There is the mosque of Amr, 
to which allusion has been made, the oldest in Cairo and its 
environs, and which displays small, round-headed arches, ap- 
parently copied from the Byzantine, before the introduction of 
the pointed arch ; the Kasr es Shema, the stronghold of the 
Byzantine power, from which the Saracen conqueror wrested 
Egypt. It presents extremely high, and apparently impregnable 
walls, with gates admitting to the maze of Coptic buildings 
within, some of which are elevated on the rampart itself. It 
contains several churches and a convent, in which is a grotto 
traditionally the retreat of the holy family when in Egypt. It 
is indeed a curious nest. And beside this the Copts have other 
convents in the neighborhood. It is impossible for the most 
ordinary physiognomist not to be struck with the heavy, 
sullen, and somewhat sinister look of this singular people, so 
different from either the Turkish or Arab race. Perhaps some- 



THE JEWISH CEMETERY. 



thing of this may be derived from their former degraded posi- 
tion, yet not altogether so ; and from all that has been said of 
them, their moral characteristics are answerable to this forbid- 
ding exterior ; with the worst oriental vices, they are without 
its redeeming virtues and high quahties, and they may be 
compared to the Levantine Greeks for subtlety and intrigue, 
without possessing any of their mercurial liveliness and genius. 
In this vicinity was also the Egyptian Babylon, on an 
eminence, and the site of the Arab cities which were finally 
supplanted by Cairo. And there is a spot which I also visited 
once with Mr. Lieder, between this neighborhood and the 
sterile crags of Mokattam — the burial-ground of the Jews. This 
is a dreary place beyond the Arab cemetery to the west of the 
citadel, quite in the open desert, and from its humble slabs is 
a wide view over the Nile and the site of Memphis, with the 
whole range of pyramids from Sakhara to Ghizeh, the quarries 
of Toura, and the mouth of that wild valley which conducts 
to the shores of the Red Sea near Suez. Among the many 
theories respecting the Israelites, is that which supposes that 
they labored on the pyramids, and there is an inscription 
among the quarries at Toura, in the Sinaitic character, which, 
as it has been averred, records their hard bondage under their 
Egyptian taskmasters ; while some also, supposing that Mem- 
phis, and not Zoan, was the seat of the Pharaoh alluded to in 
Scripture, make the Israelites to have retreated from this 
vicinity by the valley in question to the shores of the Red Sea. 
This appears no less probable, than the generally received 
opinion that their departure took place from the lower Delta ; 
and so deeply interesting is the whole subject, that it casts an 
influence over the mind when visiting this desolate desert 
cemetery of this wonderful people. Still nearer to the city are 
some exquisitely beautiful Saracenic tombs, like slender towers, 
quite unique in design, which are well worthy of attention. 
Here too is the tomb of Mehemet Ali and his family, externally 
among the most humble of these endless and beautiful monu- 



EXCURSION TO HELIOPOLIS. 89 

ments, but within described as particularly " snug and comfort- 
able lying." 

It is a pleasant ride of two hours from Cairo to the site of 
Heliopolis. Passing through the Bab e Nusr, and a long 
suburb, the road keeps between avenues of acacias, along near 
the edge of the cultivated land, which is watered by channels 
from the Nile, communicating with the canal which traverses the 
city, and presenting many pretty rural scenes. In the desert 
on the right are one or two of the ruinous tombs straggling 
afar from the cemetery of Kaitbay. One of these appertains 
to the celebrated Melek Adel, the brother of Saladin. Before 
reaching the mounds of Heliopolis is a well of fine water, on 
the border of a garden of citrons and palms ; in the midst of 
these is a venerable old sycamore with hollow trunk, under 
which the holy family reposed, according to tradition, on the 
flight into Egypt, and drank of the well. It is in truth a very 
pretty spot ; the citron thickets resound with the music of birds, 
and large vultures rock to and fro on the trembling branches 
of the palms ; the knotted hollow trunk bears, like the old olives 
in the garden of Gethsemane, marks of the knives of im- 
memorable pilgrims. The balsam tree, according to Pococke, 
was brought here by Cleopatra from the celebrated gardens of 
Jericho, but it is no longer met with in either place. A little 
beyond the village of Matareeh we enter the area of Heliopolis, 
between the mounds which indicate the walls of crude brick 
which surrounded it. The city was small, about half a mile 
square ; it was merely a collection of colleges and temples, but 
of the greatest celebrity, as the chief seat of Egyptian learning. 
Strabo was shown the extensive dwellings of the learned priests, 
and the houses where Eudoxus and Plato remained thirteen 
years under their tuition. The traveler who approaches the 
site along a dead level, is surprised to find that Heliopolis 
stood formerly on an artificial elevation, overlooking lakes 
which were fed by canals communicating with the Nile. 
Nothing whatever remains of the splendid edifices of this 



r 



90 



HELIOPOLIS. 



city but one solitary obelisk, about sixty-two feet high, seen 
from afar rising above a grove of date and acacia trees. 
It bears the name of Osirtesen L, with whom Joseph is 
supposed to have been cotemporary ; and it is thus one of 
the most ancient monuments in Egypt. The base is buried 
several feet in the earth that has gradually accumulated after 
the inundation, which now enters the area, described as formerly 
overlooking the surrounding level. Osirtesen I. is the first 
great name in Theban history; he reigned over Upper and 
Lower Egypt. He was the builder of the older and smaller 
part of the great temple of Karnak. It was most probably 
at Heliopolis that Moses acquired the wisdom of the Egyp- 
tians, and where he planned the liberation of his countrymen. 
Here too, or in the vicinity, Jeremiah wrote his Lamentations 
for their downfall. From the learned priests of Heliopolis 
Plato, who studied here several years, is believed to have 
derived the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and of a 




future state of rewards and punishments. It has been mentioned 
in the description of Alexandria, that the seat of learning was 
transferred hence to that city, and that the obelisks of Cleopatra 
(so called) once ornamented the fallen city of Heliopohs. 



EXCURSION TO THE PYRAMIDS. 



91 



It is singular that this neighborhood, the probable scene of 
the Exodus of the Israelites, persecuted by the Egyptian 
Pharaohs, should, in the reign of the Ptolemies, have afforded a 
refuge for certain of their descendants from the persecution of 
Antiochus, king of Syria. Onias, son of the high-priest of 
Jerusalem, took refuge at Alexandria, and besought Ptolemy to 
grant him permission to build a temple like that of Jerusalem, 
and to raise up a frontier defense against the aggressions of his 
Syrian rival. The permission was granted. The temple of 
Onion was finished, o/her small cities were grouped around it, 
and a considerable body of Jews established themselves in the 
vicinity of their ancient seat of Goshen, where they remained 
till a late period. The site of Onion is most probably at Tel el 
Yehood, or ' the mound of the Jews,' about twelve miles north- 
east of Heliopolis. 

From the height of the citadel and from every open space 
about Cairo, we had seen the pyramids towering in the dis- 
tance for several days ; we now prepared to visit them. As the 
distance is not great, some parties go early in the morning 
and contrive to return by night ; others, camping out the first 
night, proceed the next day to Sakhara, the site of Memphis, 
but the increasing inundation, by covering the plain, rendered 
this latter part of the expedition almost useless. We deter- 
mined, however, to pass a night at Ghizeh, and to see the sun 
rise from the summit of the great pyramid. But little prepara- 
tion is needful, some of the excavated tombs serving as a 
nightly shelter, and the neighboring Arabs furnishing milk 
and other necessaries. Some cold provisions and a few candles 
were all with which we chose to encumber ourselves. We set 
forth from Cairo in the midst of one of those afternoon tempests 
of hot suffocating dust which are among its most tormenting 
plagues, penetrating into the inmost recesses of the houses. 
The air came in hot gusts like blasts from the mouth of a fur- 
nace ; the impalpable sand whirled and eddied through the 
narrow, crowded streets, filling the mouth, ears, and eyes, and 



92 THE FERRY AT GHIZEH. 

obscuring all but the nearest objects in a cloud of pale red 
haze. We kept on our way nevertheless; by the time we 
reached the open suburbs, the squall gradually passed over; 
and when we reached the ferry over the Nile at Old Cairo, the 
sky was perfectly serene. 

This ferry is one of the most beautiful, as well as bustling 
spots in Egypt. The light arabesque houses and swarming 
cafes of Old Cairo run parallel with the river, and in front 
is an open space piled up with immense heaps of corn, which, 
in this dry climate, are left without dar^ger in the open air. 
There are women selling rich clusters of grapes, melons, figs, 
and dates. An incessant and most noisy crowd pours down to 
the ferry upon horses, camels, and donkeys. The river comes 
down in a broad and glassy current, divided into two chan- 
nels by the island of Rhoda, the greenest and most beautiful in 
all Egypt, at the point of which is the building containing the 
Nilometer, for ascertaining the rise of the river. Its banks are 
lined by large djerms, or carrying boats, while others sweep 
down with their blue striped latine sails, swelling to the breeze 
like the expanded wings of some enormous bird. On the op- 
posite side, above the chocolate-colored alluvial bank, extends 
for miles a rich green level, brilHant with luxuriant and va- 
riegated crops, dotted with palm groves, and enlivened by Arab 
villages and minarets. At its extremity, in the strongest con- 
trast, are the yellow sands of the Libyan desert, on the rising 
edge of which are ranged the eternal pyramids. In the time 
of the Romans, when Memphis was yet a great city, there was a 
bridge of boats across the Nile somewhere near this spot ; but 
now the communication is entirely kept up by means of the 
ferry. We squeezed down with the rest, and after much con- 
tention among the boatmen for the prize of an extra piastre, 
were huddled, with our donkeys, into one of the smaller barks ; 
and, the huge sail being loosed, in a few moments flew across 
to the opposite side, and mustered our donkeys upon the raised 
agger or dike. Our ride across the plain was somewhat cir- 



'"'rfi1fe_ 




THE SPHYNX. 93 

cuitous, on account of the rising inundation, which had not yet, 
however, entirely cut off the usual communication. We reached 
the edge of the cultivated land as the sun was setting behind the 
pyramids in a flush of glory, shooting beams of intensely red light 
across the irregular sands. Our approach was not unperceived, 
and a whole posse of Arabs soon rushed forward, not to offer, but 
to force upon us their importunate, annoying services. It was 
useless to drive them away; they returned like flies to the attack ; 
fortunately, we had brought with us a well-armed janissary, 
who knew how to deal with them, and whose baton was pretty 
freely used upon their heads and shoulders. When we reached 
our dormitory among the tombs, the Sheik of the village came 
forward, and we agreed with him for the services of two Arabs 
to accompany us about the neighborhood, and help us on the 
following morning to ascend the great pyramid. This done, we I 
sallied forth by the light of the rising moon, which touched the I 
tops of the billowy waves of sand, while their hollows were in 
deep shadow. A majestic apparition suddenly burst upon us — 
an enormous head and shoulders, whitened by the moonlight, 
towered above the extremity of one of the sand ravines which 
lay in obscurity below, through which, far beneath the chest 
of the statue, dimly peeped out the traces of the winged globe 
upon the tablet formerly buried beneath its paws. The 
features were much mutilated, yet an expression faintly beam- 
ed through them of bland repose and immutable serenity. 
The pyramids in all their vastness arose behind. No assem- 
blage of objects could be more awful or imposing. The 
heaving sands which surge up and down, like the petrified 
waves of a sea, by concealing the base of the Sphynx, 
and burying the temple and avenue of approach which for- 
merly led up, cause it to resemble some mysterious pre- 
adamite monarch, or one of those gigantic genii of Arabian 
fiction, which make their abode in the desolate places of the 
earth. It is not surprising, therefore, that it should, as 
Wilkinson informs us, be known to the superstitious Arabs of 



94 



THE SPHYNX. 



the present day by the name of Aboolhol, or " the father of 
terror" or immensity. 

In its state of pristine perfection, no single statue in Egypt 
could have vied with it. When by the labors of M. Caviglia, 
the lower part of the figure, which had been covered up by the 
sand, was at length uncovered for a while by laborious and 
Sisyphus-like toil, (the sand slipping down almost as fast as it 
could be removed,) it presented the appearance of an enorm- 
ous couchant Sphynx, with gigantic paws, between which 
crouched, as if for protection, a miniature temple with a plat- 
form, and flights of steps for approaching it, with others lead- 
ing down from the plain above. A crude brick wall protected 
it from the sand. It is hardly possible to conceive a more 
strange or imposing spectacle than it must have formerly pre- 
sented to the worshiper, advancing as he did along this avenue 
of approach, confined between the sand-walls of the ravine, 
and looking up over the temple to the colossal head of the 
tutelary deity, which beamed down upon him from an altitude 
of sixty feet, with an aspect of godlike benignity. On un- 
covering the paws, accordingly, many inscriptions were found, 
records of the admiration of Grecian travelers, and of careful 
restorations by the Roman emperors. One of the former, as 
translated by Dr. Young and quoted by Wilkinson, is as 
follows : 

" Thy form stupendous here the gods have placed, 
Sparing each spot of harvest-bearing land, 
And with this mighty work of art have graced 
A rocky isle, encumbered once with sand. 
And near the pyramids have bid thee stand : 
N'ot that fierce Sphynx that Thebes erewhile laid waste, 
But great Latona's servant mild and bland ; 
Watching that prince beloved who fills the throne 
Of Egypt's plains, and caUs the Nile his own. 
That heavenly monarch, (who his foe defies,) 
Like Vulcan powerful, (and Mke PaUas wise)." 

Arrian. 

The whole figure is cut out of the rock, excepting the fore 



ASCEinr OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. 95 

legs. The head formerly was adorned with a cap, which has 
been removed, but portions of the drapery at the side of the 
face remain. Should any one imagine that the annexed rep- 
resentation exaggerates the size, it may be stated that the 
circumference of the head around the forehead is given by 
Phny as one hundred and two feet. It is supposed to have 
been originated by Thotmes III., and the names of his son and 
of later monarchs are inscribed upon it, and they are repre- 
sented as offering sacrifice to a smaller representation of it. 

From contemplating this marvel of the ancient world, we 
repaired to our nocturnal abode in a tomb scooped out of a 
ledge of the rock on which the great pyramid is reared. Hav- 
ing arranged with certain Arabs to wake us up in order to 
ascend it before sunrise, we lay down, supped, and slept 
soundly on our carpets. 

Beautiful is the dawn in every land; but in Egypt 
peculiarly grateful, from its refreshing coolness and shadow, 
too soon exchanged for the glare and heat of the long 
summer's day. The Arabs awoke us from our slumbers in 
the tomb, and in a few moments we were at the base of the 
great pyramid. 

As in the case of the Falls of Niagara, so it is with these 
marvels of human creation — it is not until you stand close be- 
neath them that you realize their stupendous magnitude and 
almost overwhelming grandeur. In looking up at these count- 
less layers of masonry, each of them more than breast high, 
which tower upward to the dizzy apex, imagination readily 
exaggerates the difficulty of their ascent ; but to the Arabs the 
feat is as familiar as going up-stairs, and their fearlessness and 
dexterity are sufficient to assure the most timorous. It is at the 
north-east corner that we began the ascent, where time and 
accident have somewhat wrought the massive stonework into 
cracks and fissures ; of these the Fellahs know every one, and 
seizing our hands, they rapidly hauled us upward, instructing 
us in every foot-hole ; and shouting, laughing, one pulling us 



96 



VIEW FROM THE GREAT PYRAMID. 



from above, another unceremoniously propelling us in the rear, 
in a very short time we stood midway up the giant sides of the 
monument, where we paused a moment, and pressing our backs 
against the stonework, glanced, half fearfully, down the steep 
descent of steps upon the ocean of sand at their base, and 
the boundless horizon expanding in front, at the same time 
peeping upward to the sky-piercing summit. Averting our 
eyes from the dizzy prospect, we then turned round, and more 
and more excited as we continued the clamber, after a short and 
desperate scramble, arrived panting and palpitating at the top. 
Here the fall of a few layers has left a small platform of level 
stonework, cracked, weather-beaten, and corroded by some 
thousand years of time and tempests, and inscribed with the 
names of travelers from every land. 

The view from the great pyramid is wonderful as the struc- 
ture itself. From its skyey crest we look down upon two re- 
gions different as life from death. Far as the eye could see 
stretched away the glorious valley, the eternal fertility of which 
has outHved the empires founded on, and nourished by, its pro- 
lific soil. The same phenomenon to which that fertility was 
owing was visibly renewed before my eyes ; wide portions of 
the valley were already becoming so many lagoons ; the villages 
and palm groves were isolated ; the life-giving waters poured 
from the brimming river were making their way through various 
channels, to saturate and enrich the plain. And everywhere 
coming up to its green edge, and hemming it in with an im- 
passable barrier, are the yellow sands of that boundless Libyan 
desert, stretching away to the westward, on the elevated edge 
of which the pyramids are placed. From the summit of the 
first of these the second appears in all its grandeur ; the tem- 
pest has lashed up the sand in great masses against its giant 
sides ; at its foot is a region of the most ancient tombs and pits 
in the world, the resting-places of priests and nobles clustered 
round their monarch ; their yawning orifices, like the dens of 
wild animals, honeycomb the broken sand. " The Sphynx from 



SUNRISE FROM THE PYRAMID. 



97 



hence appears insignificant ; the neighboring group of palm- 
trees dwindles to a tiny speck. 

It was a luxury to look up into the immense arch of the sky, 
to which we seemed nearer than to the earth, and here of such 
pure, unclouded transparency — we might penetrate into the 
depths of azure space. Over the eastward mountains, on the 
other side the Nile, the dawn was shooting upward its glorious 
radiance through the vast concave, a few thin bars of lustrous 
crimson of almost unsufferable brilliancy appeared, and the sun 
rose like a ball of intense fire. As it clomb the sky the land- 
scape kindled into life ; the distant Nile, and the waters of the 
inundation, flushed with the growing splendor. The smoke 
curled up from the Arab villages, awaking with all their 
noises ; the barking of dogs, the shrill babble of Fellahs, and 
the lowing of cattle, faintly ascended to our aery post. But 
the only sound that arose from the immense expanse of the 
Libyan desert, was the wailing of the winds, as they contend 
over its dead surface, and pile it up into shapeless swells and 
ridges, wakening a wild and mournful music. From the second 
pyramid and that of Mycerinus were cast, by the rising sun, 
majestic shadows which seemed to stretch half across the 
blanched and desolate expanse, a sublime efTect which can be 
but faintly imagined by those who have not witnessed it. 

There is an immensity in all the elements of this scene, and 
in the ideas they excite in the mind. The works of man seem 
in their magnitude and eternal durability to contend, as it were, 
with those of nature. Every thing is so strange, so vast, 
so suggestive of a host of wonderful associations, that there 
is, perhaps, no other spot on earth where the mind is more 
exalted and awed. More fortunate than many others, owing 
to our arrangements, we were quite undisturbed in this con- 
templation. Our two Fellahs crouched down half asleep on 
the layers of stone below us ; and a young Arab girl, who 
had climbed after us with a porous water-bottle in the hope 
of gleaning a few paras, sat immovable as a stone upon the top- 
is '*' 



93 SPECULATIONS ON THEIR ORIGIN. 

most ledge, cutting the desert horizon with her Uthe and grace- 
ful form. 

How many illustrious travelers in all ages have sat and 
gazed upon the scene around ! and how endless are the specula- 
tions in which they have indulged ! " The epochs, the build- 
ers, and the objects of the pyramids," says Gliddon, "had, for 
two thousand years, been dreams, fallacies, or mysteries." To 
begin at the beginning, some have supposed them to be ante- 
diluvian ; others, that they were built by the children of Noah 
to escape from a second flood, — by Nimrod, by the Pali of Hin- 
dostan, and even the ancient Irish. It was a favorite theory 
until very lately, that they were the work of the captive Israel- 
ites. The Arabians attributed them to the Jins or Genii ; 
others, to a race of Titans. Some have supposed them to have 
been the granaries built by Joseph; others, intended for his 
tomb, or those of the Pharaoh drowned in the Red Sea, or of 
the bull Apis. Yeates thinks they soon followed the Tower of 
Babel, and both had the same common design ; while, according 
to others, they were built with the spoils of Solomon's temple 
and the riches of the queen of Sheba. They have been regarded 
as temples of Venus, as reservoirs for purifying the waters of 
the Nile, as erected fot astronomical or mathematical purposes, 
or intended to protect the valley of the Nile from the encroach- 
ments of the sands of the desert (this notable theory, too, is 
quite recent) ; in short, for every conceivable and inconceiv- 
able purpose that could be imagined by superstitious- awe, by 
erudition groping without data in the dark, or reasoning upon 
the scanty and suspicious evidence of Grecian writers. At 
length, after a silence of thousands of years, the discoveries of 
Champollion have enabled the monuments to tell their own tale ; 
— their mystery has been, in great measure, unraveled, and the 
names of their founders ascertained. The explorations of Col. 
Vyse, Perring, and recently of Lepsius, have brought to light the 
remains of no less than sixty-nine pyramids, extending in a line 
from Abouroash to Dashoor. These, by the discovery of the 



THEORY OF DR. LEPSIUS. 99 

names of their founders, are proved to have been a succession 
of royal mausolea, — forming the most subhme NecropoKs in the 
world. The size of each different pyramid is supposed to bear 
relation to the length of the reign of its builder, being com- 
menced with the delving of a tomb in the rock for him at his 
accession, over which a fresh layer of stones was added every year 
until his decease, when the monument was finished and closed 
up. Taking the number of these Memphite sovereigns and the 
average length of their reigns, the gradual construction of the 
pyramids would therefore, it is presumed, extend over a period, 
in round numbers, of some sixteen hundred years ! Imagi- 
nation is left to conceive the antecedent period required for 
the slow formation of the alluvial valley of the Nile until 
it became fit for human habitation, whether it was first peo- 
pled by an indigenous race, or by an Asiatic imagination, 
already bringing with them from their Asiatic birth-place the 
elements of civilization, or whether they grew up on the spot, 
and the long, long ages that might have elapsed, and the pro- 
gress that must have been made, before monuments so wonder- 
ful could have been erected. 

Such is the latest theory, we believe, of the construction and 
import of the pyramids. At the risk, however, of irreverence 
toward the learned authorities by whom it is propounded, we 
would remark, that it appears inconsistent with the construc- 
tion of the great pyramid of Cheops, since the existence of a 
series of interior passages and chambers, and even of air 
passages communicating with the exterior, seems to argue a 
regular design for the construction of the entire monument. 
We are utterly at a loss to conceive how their interior passages 
and chambers could have been formed gradually, as upon 
this theory they must have been, during the accumulation of a 
mass of masonry, the ultimate extent of which depended on the 
contingency of the monarch's life. And if this objection be 
fatal to the theory, what becomes of the very pretty system of 
chronology erected upon it ? To be sure, the mere existence of 



100 MEMPHIS AND ITS HISTORY. 

such a number of these monuments, most probably erected suc- 
cessively on a given spot, seems of itself to argue an immense 
antiquity ; but, as Mr. GHddon well remarks, " the gross amount 
of cartouches (or names of sovereigns) must be known before 
vahd opinions can be expressed as to the era of Menes," — 
still oscillating between the 86th and 58th century, b. c. — if 
Menes indeed can be proved ever to have had any real ex- 
istence. 

As we stand upon this hoary summit, we seem to look back 
on one hand into the night of immeasurable antiquity, and on 
the other forward into the written history of the world. On the 
alluvium below was slowly developed that civilization, that 
" wisdom of the Egyptians," which descended as a heritage to 
other nations, and which has influenced our own times. There 
is no spot on earth so venerable as the plain of- Memphis, as 
there are no monuments like the pyramids. Could we have 
stood on the same spot three or four thousand years ago, what a 
scene would have spread out before us ! Stretching for miles 
and miles along the raised edge of the desert, we should have 
beheld these sixty mausolea of the Memphite sovereigns over- 
looking their magnificent capital with its gorgeous temples and 
palaces extending to the Nile ; its crowded suburbs, the ferry 
at Rhoda, distant Heliopolis with its obelisk, glittering in the 
sun, and in the distance the verdant land of Goshen, extending 
to the outskirts of the boundless desert of the Exodus. 

Over what a large portion of the world's history extend the 
annals of Memphis ! On its pyramids, then fresh in all their 
original perfection, Abraham may have gazed with wonder 
upon his migration from the wild pasturages of Canaan. Hither 
probably was Joseph' brought as a slave, and rose to be the 
minister of Pharaoh ; and here may have taken place the scene 
of his making himself known to his brethren. Here Moses may 
have been consigned to the Nile in his ark of bulrushes, and 
hence he may have led the Israelites into the wilderness. Mem- 
phis was long the capital of Lower Egypt, till, as Thebes arose to 



MEMPHIS AND ITS HISTORY. 101 

its utmost height of grandeur under the Ramessean princes, it 
became secondary to that city. It was taken by the Persian king 
Cambyses, on his invasion of Egypt. After his return from 
Thebes, dispirited at the loss of a large portion of his army, he 
found the people rejoicing at the discovery of a suitable suc- 
cessor to the bull Apis, who had died. He regarded the 
festival as an insult, and commanding the sacred bull to be 
brought into his presence, stabbed it with his dagger, and 
laughingly told the priest that it was made of flesh and blood, 
and no god. Here he received numerous embassies and mag- 
nificent presents from the conquered nations of Asia. Hero- 
dotus visited Egypt soon after the overthrow of the Persian 
dynasty, and at Memphis he made his longest stay. He found 
the city then at its greatest size, while Thebes again was 
gradually declining ; with its citadel and suburbs it had then 
a circuit of sixteen miles. It was still a splendid city when 
Alexander the Great, after his victories over the Persians, 
advanced to the conquest of Egypt. The Macedonian army 
crossed the Nile at Heliopolis, and, without opposition, en- 
tered Memphis. This wise policy of Alexander was widely 
different from the insensate fury of Cambyses ; he assured the 
Egyptians that he came to re-establish their ancient monarchy, 
went in state to the temple, and sacrificed to the sacred bull. 
From Memphis he floated down the Nile to the Canopic mouth, 
sailed round the lake Mareotis, and landing at Racotis, laid 
the foundation of Alexandria. Under the Ptolemies, various 
Greek and Roman travelers describe Memphis still as being 
great and flourishing, when Thebes was reduced to ruin in 
consequence of rebellion against Ptelomy Lathyrus. Under 
the Romans and the Byzantine emperors, it was still, after 
Alexandria, the chief city of Egypt ; nor did it finally sink, 
until the invasion of the Arabs under Amrou, who laid 
siege to its defensive fortress of Babylon on the other side of the 
Nile, already described, and, assisted by treachery, made him- 
self master of it. He next marched to the reduction of Alex- 



102 DESCENT FROM THE SUMMIT. 

andria. An Arab city was built at Fostat or Old Cairo ; others 
arose in the course of centuries, the materials of Memphis 
were taken to erect them : and thus, although it subsisted a 
great and flourishing city long after Thebes had sunk to a 
cluster of villages, the temples of the latter city still stand to 
attract the admiration of the world, while of Memphis itself 
remain but a few insignificant fragments, and the catacombs and 
pits which contain the mummies of the sacred animals and their 
worshipers. The alluvial slime of the Nile, to w^ich it owed 
its origin, has covered it with a beautiful pall of golden 
harvests and waving palm-groves. Well indeed might Na- 
poleon exclaim, when, upon the plain below, over which 
Rameses, and Cambyses, and Alexander had once marched, he 
prepared to give battle to the Memlook cavalry — " Soldiers ! 
from the summit of those monuments forty centuries look down 
upon you.' 

As the sun rose higher, at length it became necessary to 
descend. This, to nervous persons, might seem to be worse 
than to get up, as they have ever the tremendous perspective 
of the steps before their eyes ; yet there is something 
so inspiring in the whole aflfair, that their apprehensions are 
generally forgotten. We began to leap down from step to step, 
our Arabs preceding us ; but we despised their proffered aid, 
and hurrying down with almost dangerous rapidity, in a 'ew 
minutes were comfortably extended in a cool niche among 
the billowy sands at the base of the pyramid, where we re- 
cruited our fatigues with a repast than which none could ever 
have been better relished, and indulged in a little repose before 
penetrating into the interior of the monument. 

The entrance to the great pyramid is about forty feet from 
the ground. Here one is sure to be worried by the persevering 
annoyance of the Arabs, whose petty, but insatiable demands 
for beckshish, which leads them to dog your every footstep for 
a chance of employment on which to found some claim, griev- 
ously disturbs you on an occasion when silence no less than 



INTERIOR OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. 



103 



solitude are so desirable. Could we get rid of these provoking 
trivialities, in standing before the small dark entry to the 
hidden chambers of this mysterious monument, the vastness 
of the pile, the enormous massiveness of the layers of stone, 
and the two huge blocks forming an arch over the passage, the 
wild heaps of sand driven up by the tempests from the lonely 
desert around, could rarely fail to produce, hackneyed as is the 
feat of exploring the pyramids, a sense approaching to awe. 
At the entrance, the stones follow the inclination of the 
passage ; there are a few foot-holes to aid you in descending 
the slippery blocks. Stooping down at the entrance of the low 
passage, four feet high, we began the sloping descent into the 
interior. This first passage continues on a slope, down to a 




subterranean room ; but at the distance of 106 feet, a block of 
granite closes it ; and an upper passage ascends from this point 
at an angle of 27°. Climbing by a few steps into the second 
passage, you ascend to the entrance of the great gallery. From 
this point a horizontal passage leads into what is called the 
Queen's Chamber, which is small and roofed by long blocks, 
resting against each other and forming an angle : its height to 
this point is about twenty feet. There is a niche in the east 
end, where the Arabs have broken the stones in search for 
treasure ; and Sir G. Wilkinson thinks, that " if the pit where 



101 PASSAGES TO KING'S CHAMBER 

the king's body was deposited does exist in any of these rooms, 
it should be looked for beneath this niche." He remarks, 
besides, that this chamber stands under the apex of the pyra- 
mid. At the base of the great gallery, to which we now return, 
is the mouth of what is called the well, a narrow funnel-shaped 
passage, leading down to the chamber at the base of the edi- 
fice, hollow^ed in the rock, and if the theory of Dr. Lepsius is 
correct, originally containing the body of the founder. The 
long ascending slope of the great gallery, six feet wide, is 
formed by successive courses of masonry overlaying each other, 
and thus narrowing the passage toward the top. 

Advancing 158 feet up this impressive avenue, we come to a 
horizontal passage, where four granite portcullises, descending 
through grooves, once opposed additional obstacles to the rash 
curiosity or avarice which might tempt any to invade the 
eternal silence of the sepulchral chamber, w^hich they besides 
concealed ; but the cunning of the spoiler has been there of old, 
the device was vain, and you are now enabled to enter this, the 
principal apartment in the pyramid, and called the King's 
Chamber, entirely constructed of red granite, as is also the 
sarcophagus, the lid and contents of which had been removed. 
This is entirely plain, and without hieroglyphics, — the more 
singular, as it seems to be ascertained that they were then in 
use. The sarcophagus rests upon an enormous granite block, 
which may, as suggested by Mrs. Poole, in her, minute account 
of the interior, have been placed to mark the entrance to a 
deep vault or pit beneath. There are some small holes in the 
walls of the chamber, the purpose of which was for ventilation, 
as at length discovered by Colonel Howard Vyse. 

Above the King's Chamber, and only to be reached by a 
narrow passage, ascending at the south-east corner of the great 
gallery, having notches in which pieces of w^ood were formerly 
inserted, and from the top of that, along another passage, is the 
small chamber discovered by Mr. Davison ; its height is only 
three feet six inches ; above it are four other similar niches, 




SECOND AND THIRD PYRAMIDS. 105 

discovered by Colonel Howard Vyse, the topmost of which is 
angular. Wilkinson supposes that the sole purpose of 
these chambers is to relieve the pressure on the King's 
Chamber, and here was discovered the cartouche, 
containing the name of the founder, Suphis, identical 
with that found upon the tablets in Wady Maghara in 
the desert of Mount Sinai. 

The second pyramid, generally attributed, though without 
hieroglyphical confirmation, to Cephrenes, is more ancient and 
ruder in its masonry than that of Cheops. Standing on higher 
ground, it has from some points an appearance of greater height 
than that of the great pyramid, and its dimensions are hardly 
less stupendous. It is distinguished by having a portion of the 
smooth casing yet remaining, with which all the pyramids were 
once covered, and it is a great feat to climb up this dangerous 
slippery surface to the summit. Yet there are plenty of Arabs 
who for a trifling beckshish will dash " down Cheops and up 
Cephrenes" with incredible celerity. Its interior arrangements 
differ from those of the great pyramid, in that in accordance 
with Lepsius's theory, the sarcophagus of the builder is sunk in 
the floor, and not placed in the center of the edifice. The glory 
of re-opening this pyramid is due to the enterprising Belzoni. 

The third pyramid is of much smaller dimensions than the 
tw^o others, but beautifully constructed. It was the work, as is 
proved by the discovery of his name, of Mycerinus or Men- 
cheres, whose wooden coflin in the British Museum, very 
simple and unornamented, as well as the desiccated body sup- 
posed to be that of the monarch himself, has probably attracted 
the notice of our readers. This pyramid is double, i. e. cased 
over with a distinct covering. Besides these principal ones, 
there are still standing other and smaller pyramids, more or less 
entire, grouped about these larger ones, and forming a portion 
of this stupendous Necropolis of Memphis. 

At what period these sepulchral monuments were first 
violated is uncertain. Some are inclined to attribute their 

14 



106 TOMBS AROUND THE PYRAMIDS. 

original desecration to the Hykshos, or Shepherd Kings, and 
that, owing to this circumstance, the Egyptian monarchs 
afterward preferred to hide their sepulchres in the solitary 
recesses of the Theban hills, though they could hardly have 
hoped to escape the penetrating scrutiny of a rapacious con- 
queror. Be this as it may, it is evident from the inscription 
of their names found on the pyramids, that the Arabian caliphs 
opened the whole of them in the vain quest of treasure, as 
Wilkinson supposes, in 820, a. d. They were then found to 
have been previously rifled, and singularly enough, to have 
been closed up again with the greatest care. 

That a people who could erect such monuments as the 
pyramids must have arrived at a high degree of civilization and 
refinement, is a natural inference, and one fully corroborated 
by the remarkable discoveries among the numerous surround- 
ing tombs. Wilkinson had already found representations of 
" the trades, boats, repasts, dancing, agricultural and farming 
processes, as in the tombs of later date, at Thebes and else- 
where, and with enumerations in decimals of the wealth of the 
owner of the tomb, which, like that of Abraham, consisted 
principally in flocks and herds. He remarks, that a picture of 
a butcher sharpening his red knife on a blue rod, seems to prove 
the use of steel. Copper, we know from the monumental 
tablets at those places, was brought by the kings of this dynasty 
from the neighboring peninsula of Sinai, where their names 
are engraved upon the rocks. The researches of Dr. Lepsius 
have resulted in a vast accession of facts, which he is now 
engaged in classifying, and the results of which, as regards 
both the chronology and other matters, are of immense interest 
and value. These mysterious pyramids, which have excited the 
conjectures and baffled the scrutiny of ages, — even the empty 
tombs that were abandoned to the bats and jackals, — seem now, 
by the Prometheus wand of hieroglyphical discovery, to reveal a 
world of curious information as to minutest details of a civiliza- 
tion existing some four thousand years ago. 



OBJECT OF THE PYRAMIDS. 107 

The erection of the pyramids has been generally attributed 
to the arbitrary tyranny of the dynasty, as some have thought, 
of foreign origin, who then ruled • over Egypt. Herodotus 
tells us that Cheops was detested by the Egyptians, whose 
temples he had closed, and that he employed them forcibly in 
the exhausting labor of building the great pyramid. Great 
doubts seem to rest over this and other statements of the 
partially informed Greek historian, and it has latterly been 
maintained that these stupendous monuments were, on the con- 
trary, erected by gradual and easy degrees, by paid labor, and 
at government expense ; serving, in fact, the most useful and 
beneficent design of giving employment to the poorer classes 
of a vast agricultural population, confined by nature on a mere 
strip of alluvial soil, when thrown idle three months in the 
year by the inundation of the Nile.* 

It is confessedly, however, hardly the moment to enlarge 
upon the subject of the pyramids, when so much light is about 
to be thrown upon it by the publication of Dr. Lepsius's re- 
searches. We have confined ourselves, therefore, to a descrip- 
tion of the more prominent and obvious points, and of the 
general results of modern investigations. We shall now return 
to Cairo, and prepare for a continuation of our journey., 

* Gliddon. 



CHAPTER IV. 

DEPARTURE FOR THEBES. — DANCING-GIRLS. SLAVE-BOAT. — THE RAMADAN. 

DENDERAH. KENEH. 

The winter climate of Egypt is universally declared to be 
delightful; but it was now the height of summer, and I was, 
day and night, (to borrow Mrs. Butler's phraseology,) in a state 
of "absolute meltingness-away ;" the closeness of Cairo was 
almost insupportable ; yet now, or never, I was compelled to 
proceed into Upper Egypt. Every one said, that I should find 
the heat worse and worse, as was natural, the nearer I advanced 
toward the tropic. Happily, this proved to be a mistake ; but, 
at the time, it seemed a rash enterprise. However, having no 
alternative, I hired a servant, and with him went down to 
Boulak^on different occasions to look for a boat. I found much 
difficulty in suiting myself; most were too large and too ex- 
pensive for a single traveler ; in fact, the price of every thing 
in Egypt seems to have greatly risen of late years, the wages 
of servants and hire of boats in particular, till it is becoming a 
serious drawback in the way of travelers with moderate means ; 
— a thing much to be regretted. It is undoubtedly a compensa- 
tion that more comfort is now obtainable than formerly. I found, 
at length, a boat of the smaller class, newly painted, and appa- 
rently quite clean, which I hired at 900 piastres (£9) per month, 
inclusive of the wages of the Reis and six boatmen : such pro- 
visions as were needful were then laid in, a fresh supply of 
eggs, bread, meat, and vegetables being generally obtainable at 
the villages. In order to have a regular supply of milk, which 



OPHTHALMIA AND BUGS. 109 

proved a great luxury, we had a goat on board, and a filtering 
stone for the water, besides "goollehs," or vases of porous clay 
to cool the water. I shall not give a list of the various ar- 
ticles we took with us ; suffice it to say, that they were pretty 
numerous, as they must be, if a reasonable measure of comfort 
is to be attained. The boat, when fitted up, was quite a snug 
little ark, a world in itself I went on board, proud of my 
floating home. I was monarch of all I surveyed, and amused 
myself with arranging every thing in the nicest order ; and 
what with books, pistols, matting carpets, and green blinds, it 
looked so pretty and so cheerful, and when I lay down on my 
bed in the cabin, the breezes were so delightful and refreshing, 
that I heartily rejoiced I was out of the stifling heat of Cairo 
and fairly embarked on my cruise. 

But, alas for all human anticipations ! the morning opened 
most inauspiciously ; the boat proves to be full of bugs, and I 
passed a restless, a savage night; in addition, Salem has a 
violent attack of ophthalmia, and has been rolling about the deck 
in agony ; fortunately, we had with us sulphate of zinc and 
copper, and after obtaining from the city some rose-water, I 
mixed them, and applied as per prescription in Sir G. Wilkin- 
son's Hand-book, and had the satisfaction of seeing Salem rapidly 
improve. The extermination of the bugs was matter of more 
difficulty; the scoundrel of a Reis had neglected to sink the 
boat as he had promised, and from every chink and crevice in 
the old planks hundreds came forth, scenting the blood of an 
Englishman ; books, matting, and clothing were all in a swarm 
with the disgusting vermin, from the swollen old patriarch to 
the youngest of his descendant fry. We threw the mats over- 
board to begin with, removed all the furniture, and by dint of 
sundry pails of water, furious scrubbing, ferreting out the nests 
with an iron pike, stuffing the chinks with camphor, and then sub- 
jecting every separate article to a rigid investigation, we routed 
the main body the first day, and by a watchful look-out till the 
second evening, and cutting off stragglers, had fairly gained the 



110 NECESSITY OF THE STICK. 

victory; the rest, if there were any, retreating forward to their 
fitting quarters near the person of the Reis and his men, and 
coming no more about the quarter-deck. Salem was indig- 
nant at the Reis, who turned out a lazy, dirty, worthless rascal, 
and wanted to beat him ; but this discipline of the stick, though 
very ancient, highly necessary, and perfectly well understood 
in Egypt, revolts at first one's English prejudices, and I for- 
bade him to resort to it. He shrugged his shoulders, and 
assured me, that as I should at length be driven to it in spite 
of myself, it was better to begin at once by producing a whole- 
some impression, which would be an ultimate saving in the 
amount required, declaring that, but for my injunction, he 
would begin by breaking the Reis's head at once. The truth 
is, that the bastinado was found indispensable by the ancient 
Egyptians, and that it was administered even to the softer sex, 
who certainly do seem, even in modern Egypt, to require some 
little correction. The subjects of Rameses the Great took the 
stick to their refractory wives, and so do the modern Arabs. 
It is not easy to eradicate the habits of ages, and it is a sad fact 
that nothing can be done without it. The peasant makes it a 
point of honor not to pay his rent, though he has it in his 
pocket, till he has been so beaten that he can not stand upon 
his legs. I foolishly demurred, and had afterward much oc- 
casion to regret my ill-timed interference with established 
usage. Reluctance to harsh measures passed for facility and 
weakness. I was constantly annoyed, and all but driven to that 
"ultima ratio" with an Arab boatman, the infliction of the 
bastinado by an unfeeling petty governor. Much depends 
however on the character of the captain ; mine, to my sorrow, 
proving a very unfortunate selection. Very amusing are the 
airs and graces of Salem — my dragoman and factotum, in the 
exercise of his little brief authority over the Reis and sailors ; 
and truly, for my own sake, I was glad to lend fuel to his con- 
ceit, and zeal to his watchful oversight. 

With the evening breeze the sails were spread, and we ran 



DEPARTURE FROM OLD CAIRO. 



Ill 



rapidly, to the sound of the darrabuka, along the narrow chan- 
nel separating the island of Rhoda from Old Cairo. This 
suburban scenery of the Nile is very charming. The light, 
gay villas and latticed harems of the wealthy Turks, half 
buried in rustling date-groves and gardens, project over the 
river, which is animated by the constant passage of boats dart- 
ing about with their great white sails, like birds, under the 
lively evening breeze which wafted the odors from the ad- 
jacent gardens across the stream. It is a delightful sensa- 
tion too, when, with stores laid in and preliminary troubles 
over, one first sees the broad latine sails of the bark ex- 
panding to the steady breeze which is to waft it among the 
wonders of early time, the temples and the tombs of mighty 
Thebes. 

I shall never forget the moment when the boat shot out of 
the narrow channel of Rhoda, and issued into the magnificent 
river, rolling in its full breadth between groves of palm. The 
sun was setting red upon the pyramids, seen afar beyond the 
level green valley, and burnishing the sands of the Libyan 
desert ; the wind raised vast clouds of dust, tinged with the 
ruddy beams, and driving across toward the stream, the red- 
dening sails caught the gust, which freshened as the sun set, 
and as we dashed rapidly through the seething waters, Cairo 
and its minarets on the eastern banks, the mounds of Baby- 
lon and the crags of Mokattam on the west, the long suc- 
cession of pyramids seen stretching far away to the site of 
ancient Memphis, all mingled into ruddy haze and twilight 
obscurity. We made great way, but missing the channel we 
became involved among a mftze of sandy islands, and I had a 
rough introduction to a common incident in Nile navigation. 
I had hardly lay down to rest, when I was thrown off my bench 
upon the floor by a sudden jerk ; — we had run upon a shoal : the 
boatmen, stripping off their scanty attire, leaped into the water, 
shouting and singing in chorus, and speedily engaged in get- 
ting off the vessel, an operation which consumed some time. 



112 THE DANCING-GIRLS. 

At length we got back again into the main stream, and I suc- 
ceeded in getting a few hours of quiet sleep. 

The next day we were becalmed, and the men were com- 
pelled to track. As we passed abreast of ancient Memphis, the 
pyramids of Sakhara and Dashoor, and, later still, the False 
pyramid, as it is called, successively presented themselves. 

About noon the following day, we saw the groves and 
minarets of Beni-souef, the first town of importance on the 
western bank of the Nile. A few articles of provision were 
wanting, and the boat was towed on to the usual landing-place, 
while I preferred walking along the shore. I found it so ex- 
cessively hot as to wish myself back again, and was about to 
hail the vessel, when the sound of music caught my ears, and I 
perceived an assemblage of people under the shade of a cluster 
of Sont trees near the river, and rising now and then over their 
heads, the braceleted arms and castanets of the famous " Ghawa- 
zee," or dancing-girls, who, banished from the capital, were 
forced to carry their voluptuous allurements farther up the 
river. Having often wished for an opportunity of witnessing 
their performances, I slipped among the miscellaneous assem- 
blage who clustered around an elevated platform on which the 
girls were dancing, and, as I flattered myself, unperceived, for 
on such occasions as these one is not anxious to be conspicuous. 
But my Frank hat, and the umbrella which I carried on account 
of the heat, betrayed me, and an officer of the pasha's leaping 
up from his seat, pushed aside the rabble, and taking me by 
the hand, hoisted me up on the platform, and made me sit down 
by his side, a distinction which I was equally unwilling to ac- 
cept, or without offence unable to decline. 

The stage or platform might have been some thirty feet 
square, partly overshadowed with trees, and partly covered 
with a rude awning of palm leaves, yet the heat was almost 
overpowering; the river floated slowly past like boiling oil, 
and the distance was one undistinguishable blaze of heated 
mist. Around the platform were grouped a number of the 



THE DANCING-GIRLS. 



113 



pasha's officers, civil and military, some on low seats, and 
others squatted on the ground. The most part seemed men 
grown gray under a system of cruel oppression, of which they 
were the agents ; their faces were grave to coldness, hard and 
cruel lines were about their eyes and mouths, and they rarely 
moved a muscle but when some little by-play of the dancers 
specially addressed to themselves brought a hideously sensual 
smile across their pallid faces. These personages occupied the 
seats of honor, and behind them, as well as below, were 
crowded together Fellahs and boatmen, women and children of 
all ages, equally intent upon enjoying w^hat may be considered 
the national dance. 




The two dancing-girls who were ministering to the delight 
of this respectable audience seemed half overcome with the 
heat, the excitement, and raki, which an old white-bearded 
fellow from a neighboring cafe administered at the end of 

.15 



114 



THE DANCING-GIRLS. 



every dance. They had once been handsome, but were now, 
though young, decidedly use, worn out with early profligacy, 
and bedaubed, ' ad nauseam,' with a thick layer of vermihon. 
Their dress consisted of very large loose trowsers of silk, and a 
tight-bodied vest open at the bosom, and having long sleeves, 
with a large shawl wreathed round and supporting their lan- 
guid figures; they were also profusely decorated with gold 
coins and bracelets. When I ascended to my post of honor, 
or rather humiliation, they were merely figuring in lazy and 
somewhat graceful attitudes around the platform, clicking their 
castanets, and exchanging speaking glances with the hoary 
sinners around ; but on my seating myself, one of them saluted 
me with a 'pas' of such an equally original and unequivocal 
character, as elicited a burst of laughter and applause from old 
and young, brought the blood into my cheeks, and made me 
wish myself anywhere else than where I was. The dance then 
began ; but I am not going, like some travelers, to give, what 
Byron calls, " a chaste description" of it ; suffice it to say, that 
at first modestly coquettish, it became by degrees the excitement 
of wanton frenzy, and at length died away in languor. The 
points of more salient expression were warmly applauded, both 
by old and young ; none were here ashamed openly to evince, 
what it is considered more decent to veil, in our own refined 
community, where the accomplished art of the opera figu- 
rante is skilled in throwing a still more dangerous charm 
of mingled grace and piquancy over the same idea, which, 
in all its unveiled grossness, forms the characteristic expres- 
sion of the Egyptian dance. I was not, of course, at all sur- 
prised at this; but I had expected, from the descriptions of 
former travelers, (which I can not help suspecting of exaggera- 
tion,) far greater elegance in the movements of the dancers ; 
perhaps these might not have been among the most accom- 
plished specimens of the sisterhood. I was glad enough for 
once to have witnessed the exhibition, but still more content 
to escape from my post of dishonorable pre-eminence. 



THE FYOOM. 115 

St. John correctly says of these dances, " All the nations of 
the East have, from the remotest ages, delighted in this species 
of exhibition, which from them passed into Greece and Rome, 
where it furnished the poets with an agreeable theme for satire. 
Horace, whose Divus Augustus had doubtless helped to intro- 
duce it, laments that the young ladies had acquired a taste for 
the oriental style of dancing, which was evidently popular at 
Rome : and Juvenal, who had traveled in Egypt, at a later 
period, makes mention of the Roman dancing-girls. From 
paintings preserved in the grottos of Eilithyas and in the 
tombs of Thebes, we find that the ancient Egyptians had 
likewise their Ghavvazee, who were employed in their domestic 
entertainments to heighten the effect of the song and the bowl 
by their voluptuous movements." Up to a recent period^ 
(as late as 1832,) their performances constituted the principa' 
excitement of the Cairenes ; but the influence of the Mussul- 
man doctors was opposed to the scandal, and the government 
was obliged to renounce the tax levied upon their vices, and 
banish them into the provinces. 

Benisouef is a considerable town, the capital of a province, 
and residence of a bey ; and the principal road into the Fyoom 
and to lake Moeris is from hence. I was prevented by the 
inundation from visiting this district, which, however, is full 
of interest. The pyramid of Howara marks the site of the 
labyrinth, one of the wonders of ancient Egypt ; little remains 
of it above ground, but Dr. Lepsius has recently excavated, and, 
it is said, traced out the plan. Additional interest has also been 
given to the Fyoom by the discovery by M. Linant of what are 
supposed to be the genuine traces of the celebrated artificial 
reservoir of Moeris, made to retain the water of the Nile after 
the subsidence of the inundation ; and at Biahmoo are some 
curious ruins, which, if his views are correct, are, probably, 
those of the two pyramids mentioned by Herodotus as being in 
the midst of this lake. The Birket el Korn, hitherto regarded 
as the lake Moeris, is a natural lake, thirty-five miles long by 



• I 



116 MORNING ON THE NILE. 

seven broad ; its level is lower than that of the Nile. Beside 
these interesting vestiges, there are a few other remains. The 
Fyoom has always been noted for its fertility, and the variety of 
its products."* After a brief turn in the wretched bazaar of 
Benisouef, I rejoined my boat, and with the afternoon breeze 
made considerable way up the river, the banks of which now 
begin to assume a more interesting appearance. 

When I threw open my window very early next morning, the 
boat was gliding softly under a light breeze within a few yards 
of the shore, which was lined with groves of the date palm, re- 
flected by the glassy, rippling current of the river. I break- 
fasted under the awning outside the cabin. There are hours 
which one can never forget, into which the enjoyment generally 
spread over large portions of life seems as it were concentrated ; 
among these there are few more happy than those in which we 
realize another climate, the air, soil, and vegetation being 
totally different, and all inspiring new and delicious sensations ; 
when a new page of the endless variety of creation lies open 
before us. Such was this morning upon the Nile. There was 
such a broad, lustrous tranquillity in the cloudless, purple 
heaven, shed upon the noble stream, coming down through 
its eternal valley in a full, majestic, glassy current; the tall 
stems of the palms, grouping to the very edge of the river, lifted 
their burden of gently rustling fans so serenely into the summer 
air, with their glowing clusters of yellow dates, just ripening 
and tremulous with their heavy weight, their rich gum catching 
the morning beams; and the level green valley, variegated 
with crops, spread away so quietly to its desert boundary, its 
verdure rendered tenfold more beautiful by contrast with the 
yellow sands. I leaped ashore, and walked along the raised 
bank of the river ; the palm-trees and groves of sont, a spe- 
cies of acacia, were thronged by innumerable birds darting 
about the surface of the water ; and so happy and joy-inspiring 
is the climate, that the poor, enslaved Fellah for a while forgets 

* See "Wilkinson, vol. ii. 



AN EGYPTIAN VILLAGE. 



117 



his care, and mingles his songs with theirs, as he leaves his vil- 
lage to repair to the labors of the field. Strolling through 
the palm-groves, I reached Bibbe, a considerable village stand- 
ing on a high bank above the river. The villages in Egypt, 
very pretty at a distance, are far from answering to the lux- 
uriant appearance of the country, and a brief inspection reveals 
the degraded and miserable state of the inhabitants. Vast 
mounds of dust and offal are usually collected at the outskirts, 
the favorite resort of dogs, flies, and filthy children often quite 
naked, who assail the traveler, the one with loud barkings, and 
the other with deafening cries for beckshish. The dwellings are 
but a collection of mud hovels ; but the residence of the " Sheik 
belled," or head of the village, has usually a little more architec- 
tural pretensions, though confined to the same material. This 
functionary is often tolerably well dressed, but the great bulk of 
the Fellahs have scarcely a rag to cover them, and the women's 
whole clothing consists of a long blue robe, grievously worn and 
tattered. Enter one of their wretched dwellings, — there are but 
a few vessels for food and water, and the ground serves for 
chair and table ; yet, as in such a climate it is certain that the 
wants of the body are far less sensibly felt, it always seemed 
to me that our own poor are often greater sufferers, and squalid 
hovels and naked children are unhappily met with in Ireland 
as they are here. Beside the dwelling of the Sheik belled, 
the mosque with its small minaret is the only feature of the 
village, if we except the singular pigeon-houses, which are 
built up on the roofs of the cottages in square and pyramidal 
fashion, consisting of a great number of earthen jars piled one 
above another, and cemented with plaster, each jar serving as a 
nest : innumerable quantities of these birds are thus lodged, 
and their flitting about the fields and groves, or on the village 
roofs, is a very lively spectacle. I have been amused at the 
grotesque spectacle presented at one of these villages at high 
noon, when the whole population, rational and irrational, 
seems to take the river 'en masse.' The buffaloes, descend- 



118 



THE PILGRIM BOAT. 



ing the shelving bank, get deepest into the water, often showing 
but the tips of their noses, eyes, and horn^, which peer above 
the stream with a look of intense complacency ; camels, asses, 
and sheep crowd down to the brink ; old men are seen sit- 
ting apart gravely by the edge, engaged in an elaborate purifi- 
cation of their persons, without a particle of clothing ; naked 
children are dabbling and washing one another, and women 
swimming about in the stream ; while those who have already 
profited by the cleansing agency of the flood, are sitting apart 
deeply involved in depopulating their ragged garments before 
venturing again to resume them. 

To-day the valley, hitherto quite flat, began to exhibit one 
of its peculiarities in Upper Egypt, ranges of wild, arid cliffs 
approaching and bordering the river on one side for some 
miles, while the opposite shore is a rich level. As we ad- 
vance toward Thebes they become bolder, the Arabian and 
Libyan chains of mountains alternately advancing and reced- 
ing, though the former are much higher. We were becalmed 
to-day, and the men took to towing, as they always do, reluct- 
antly. This brought us up with another and larger boat 
fastened ashore, which had been hired by a numerous company 
of Turkish pilgrims from Constantinople and Brousa, who were 
proceeding, as very many do, by way of Keneh across the desert 
to Cosseir, and so by sea to Mecca. The major part were men 
of high respectability, well dressed and well mannered, and 
though the red cross of England floated from the mast of my 
little bark, and the crescent from theirs, we soon contrived to 
get upon a friendly footing, and were always glad, as it usually 
happened, to find our boats sailing side by side, and moored 
together for our nightly halt ; nor was I long in discovering 
that there were brighter eyes and whiter skins than those of the 
dusky Egyptians within the latticed cabins of their kangia ; but 
they cartie not forth from the confinement of their floating 
harems. At sundown the pilgrims formed in a line, and, with 
their faces toward Mecca, went thr-ough the evening prayer in 



AN AQUATIC BEGGAR. 119 

a manner full of impressive solemnity. An old dervish, much 
honored, seemed to be the leader of their devotions. . 

Next day the breeze sprung up, and w^e ran together under 
Gebel e Tayr, or the " mountain of the birds," a range of precipi- 
tous cliiFs coming down sheer to the water, broken into ledges 
which afford shelter to a vast number of water-fowL On the 
bleak exposed level above is a Coptic convent, or rather enclosed 
village, which is famous for a race of aquatic Christian mendi- 
cants, who, darting down the steep cliffs from their aerial perch, 
plunge into the river, and beset the boats of travelers with 
importunate clamor. My red cross made me a palpable mark, 
and accordingly it was not long ere I beheld one of the fraternity 
rapidly cleaving the waves, shouting "Christiano Howaga," 
though how he could have descended the perpendicular pre- 
cipice I sought in vain to discover. Striking out most vigor- 
ously, he soon came up with the boat ; brandy was his first 
entreaty, then bread, bottles, and above all, beckshish. He was 
a stalwart rogue, and as he stood, in puris naturalihus, upon the 
deck, I thought that had there been any on board to whom it 
would have signified, I would have had him soundly switched 
vi^ith the corbash and kicked into his favorite element, notwith- 
standing our Christian brotherhood : as it was, the incident was 
amusing enough, and we gave him a little of all he asked for ; 
the brandy he took internally, the bread he balanced on his 
head, the piastres he put into his mouth, and holding a bottle 
in one hand, he contrived, though thus encumbered, to steer 
his course with the other into a cranny of the rocks, and 
scrambled up, the Lord knows how, to his abode, amid the 
loud shouts of the admiring boatmen. A recent traveler, 
Mr. Curzon, has solved the mystery of the ascent, having 
climbed up to the convent by a very curious natural tunnel 
which perforates the precipice. 

This morning with a light breeze we reached Minyeh, de- 
cidedly the prettiest looking town upon the Nile : there is 
an old white tomb under a sycamore at one end of the place, 



120 



TOMBS OF BENI HASSAN. 



and the range of buildings along the water, interspersed with 
date groves, has a very pleasing effect ; many of the edifices are 
large, respectable, and very clean, and the interior of the town 
is somew^hat better than usual, boasting even of a bath. The 
view from Minyeh is also very beautiful. Here we laid in as 
usual some fresh provisions, all exceedingly cheap. 

Farther up the river we landed to pay a hasty visit to the 
celebrated tombs of Beni Hassan, which are situated high up 
the side of the hills, which I reached after a very toilsome 
walk. Broad ways lead up to them from the west, and after 
toiling up the unsheltered slope, you are somewhat indemnified 
even by the extensive view it commands over the green valley 
of the river. The tombs are unique in Egypt, not so much for 
the numerous and highly interesting representations on the 
walls of Egyptian manners and customs, but from the resem- 
blance of the style of their porticoes to the Grecian Doric, 
which was, probably enough, derived from it, as will be seen by 




reference to the annexed illustration ; and what seems to render 
this yet more singular, is their high antiquity, and the supposi- 



TOMBS OF BENI HASSAN. 121 

tion that the porticoes were imitated from constructive archi- 
tecture, cotemporary or of still earlier date, the reverse of 
which is however quite as probable. Indeed this tomb 
opens a very curious subject for speculation. The interior is 
exceedingly simple and elegant, having a central avenue of the 
same Doric columns, with a low coved ceiling, which Wilkin- 
son suggests may have been copied from a stone arch. On 
each side is an aisle, and there is a large niche or recess 
at the 'end of the central avenue. The walls having been pre- 
pared, and divided by lines into different compartments, were 
covered with an elaborate series of representations, which set 
before us in a most lively style, and with surprising distinctness, 
I the domestic manners of that remote period — they are indeed a 
i mine to the antiquary. This is the first time that I had seen 
this interesting peculiarity of Egyptian antiquities, and I was 
proportionally astonished and delighted. The colors, con- 
sidering the antiquity of the tomb, are wonderfully preserved. 
In the style of execution there is no great display of art, but 
the variety of the paintings is inexhaustible. They em- 
brace all the processes of agriculture from sowing to harvest, 
with fowling, fishing, and hunting scenes, some of the latter re- 
markable for their spirit ; the different trades and occupations, 
and even amusements, dancing, wrestling, playing at draughts 
and ball, and the mode of administering punishment by the 
same process as at the present day, namely, the bastinado. Here 
you see, as on the bank of the Nile at the present day, peasants 
proceeding to market, bearing their burdens, and driving their 
cattle before them, while the different craft on the river are 
depicted with equal attention. They have the appearance of 
minute and laboriously accurate delineations. It seems as 
though nothing pertaining to every-day life was forgotten ; a 
lively and sometimes half-ludicrous vein runs through the 
whole series, whicH, even to a hasty visitor, rise up with marvel- 
ous familiarity and distinctness, while the antiquary is enabled 
by a careful analysis to fill up a very complete picture of the 

16 



122 THE RAMADAN. 



manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians. In the tomb 
represented, there is on the top of the left-hand wall a procession 
of figm'es which has attracted much attention. The tomb is of 
the early time of Osirtesen L, with whom Joseph is supposed to 
have been cotemporary, and it has been sometimes imagined 
that this band of strangers might be the brethren of the patri- 
arch. The group will be gazed on with great interest, though 
Wilkinson is unable to admit the above supposition, as, though 
obviously orientals, their number does not agree with that given 
in the Bible ; they are, besides, represented as captives, and the 
name of the owner of the tomb, who was governor of this part 
of the country, is also totally different. Beside the tombs 
which so strongly resemble Doric porticoes, there are others 
I which display the early style of Egyptian architecture, formed 
I upon the imitation of the lotus and papyrus, which is carried 
out more fully in the temples. 

Tracking is toilsome for the men, and small is the pro- 
gress thus made against the current ; a new source of delay 
also has arisen in the Ramadan, " the month of fasting," whose 
inauspicious moon succeeded this night. My servant is a rigid 
and pious Mussulman, and pilgrim to boot ; several times a day 
he prostrates himself upon the deck. Happily his zeal in my 
service seems to keep pace with his piety, and his fiiry against 
the worthless Reis more than equals the fervor of his prayers. 
I was condoling with him on the hardship of preparing so many 
good dishes, of which he could not partake on account of his 
religious principles ; when he gravely smiled, and assured me 
that I was under a mistake, there being a special exemption in 
behalf of travelers, who, in consideration of their fatigues, were 
allowed to perform their month's fasting by future instalments, 
a discretion, in the same manner as Sancho liquidated his thou- 
sand lashes. I asked if this merciful provision also extended to j 
the Reis and sailors, but this idea he indignantly repudiated ; as 
they were only laboring in their ordinary vocation, the exemp- j 
tion did not apply to them ; and this curious distinction without | 



THE RAMADAN. 123 

a difference themselves admitted, all but the Reis himself, a man 
of no religion, a practical infidel, a Kafir, as Salem indig- 
nantly told him, who, instead of religiously working and not eat- 
ing, would only eat and not work, sleeping like a dog during 
the greater part of the day. The rest, from the old steersman to 
the last of the crew, never, to my knowledge, infringed in ,the 
slightest instance the terrible rigor of this prohibition ; the 
cravings of hunger they indeed contrived, in some measure, to 
satisfy by taking their meals shortly before sunrise, but, with 
their beloved Nile at hand, not a drop of water passed their 
lips during the burning summer's day; nor were they even 
free to amuse the vacuum of their stomachs by the fumes of 
the consoling pipe ; listless and languid, they labored at the 
toilsome tracking as usual, though with diminished energy, 
until the hour of sunset. Then the welcome pipe might safely 
be taken up, for I remarked they always began with it, and 
after their temperate meal they were full of merriment, sing- 
ing often to a late hour in the night. I frequently en- 
deavored insidiously to undermine the faith of the poor old 
steersman with arguments of expediency drawn from his weak- 
ness and from the compassion of Allah, urging him to take the 
food which his infirmities really required ; but he remained im- 
penetrable to all my infidel solicitations and tempting offers. 

The boatmen of the Nile are not less pious in their way than the 
rest of the Egyptian Arabs, or less accustomed to the use of those 
rehgious forms so characteristic of Mohammedan intercourse. 
Their mutual salutations are all prayers, like those of Boaz and 
his reapers. " Peace be unto you" — " God be with you"— 
" May God receive you into Paradise," are common expressions 
interchanged between passing crews, and they never pass, even 
at a distance, without saluting one another. The songs with 
which they encourage one another at the labor of the oar are 
in a similar strain of invocation, and often have a very beautiful 
effect. The Reis leads the air, and the boatmen sing in chorus, 
increasing the fervor of their chant and the vigor of their 



124 "BUCKSHEESH." 

labors almost to frenzy, with the difficulty to be surmounted. 
For all this, they have, like other people, a class morality and 
feeling, being far more honest and courteous to one another than 
to the Fellahs on shore, whose property they always steal when 
they can, without thinking any thing of it; a practice, by the 
way, religiously reciprocated by the landsmen. 

Nothing can be done with them without frequent presents of 
meat or money. Dr. Olin amusingly says, " Gratuities of all 
sorts, in food, money, or any other form, are denominated 
* bucksheesh.' This is the first word in the language which a 
traveler is likely to learn, and the least tenacious memory is in 
no danger of forgetting it. It is repeated by every body and 
on all occasions. If the traveler turns his eye ever so care- 
lessly toward a boat or a buffalo, a pile of wheat or a sack of 
dates, he is asked for bucksheesh by the persons who have the 
charge of these objects. If you look into a cabin or the gate of a 
village, you are expected to pay 'bucksheesh.' Every person who 
does you any service, in addition to the stipulated or usual pay, 
expects 'bucksheesh.' If we speak kindly to the Reis or sailors, 
or even look upon them with an unclouded brow, they demand 
this species of tribute. If the wind proves favorable, or we 
have succeeded in driving them to their work a little earlier 
than usual, or in keeping under sail till the sun is fairly out of 
sight, it is sure to be hailed as an auspicious occasion when we 
may testify our approbation by a gratuity. Our sailors, as 
often as we will listen to them, amuse us with stories about the 
Howagas, or Frank gentlemen, whom they have formerly 
carried upon the Nile. In all of their narratives they have no 
other standard of excellence than the amount of bucksheesh 
bestow^ed upon them. The man who has given bucksheesh 
liberally, no matter if he has flogged them every day, is always 
taib* All others are evil in their sight." 

I have now become quite accustomed to this boating, and in 
many respects it is unequaled traveling. I have not yet de- 
* Good — excellent. 



THE KANGIA. 125 

scribed my little vessel, or my mode of life. The kangia is 
about thirty feet long, with two masts and large latine sails, very 
picturesque in appearance, and admirably well adapted to make 
the most of the wind ; there is but one objection to them, they 
require constant attention and nice management, without which 
one runs the greatest risk of capsizing by the sudden squalls 
which come down from the mountains. The after-part of the 
vessel is occupied by a double cabin with a narrow space be- 
tween, the principal one opening on the deck, and prolonged 
as it were by means of an open verandah, under which it was 
pleasant to sit during the great heat of the day. There is a 
bench on each side the main cabin, which has also windows 
with green blinds, which can be opened and shut at pleasure. 
One of these benches was furnished with a matress, which 
served by day for a sofa, and by night, with a little addition, as 
a bed ; the other was partly occupied by books, &c., and served 
also as a table. Now that the bugs were routed, all was per- 
fectly clean ; every morning, both deck and cabin were 
thoroughly washed, an operation absolutely essential to comfort. 
The after-cabin and passage served as a deposit for stores and a 
washing-room.* The breezes on the river are so refreshing, 
that I slept far better in my little cabin than at Cairo. I was 
always up and dressed at a very early hour, often before sun- 
rise ; and nothing can be more delicious than these morning 
experiences on the broad bosom of the river, gliding alongside 
the shore in the freshness and serenity of dawn. One delight 
of this mode of travel is, that you are always at home with 
nature ; — for weeks one never misses seeing the sun rise and set 
in the same unrivaled splendor. I was familiar with moon- 
light and starlight on the broad and glassy stream, and though, 
traveling alone, the hours often hung heavy on my hands, I 
had others beyond all price. As the wind was often light in 
the forenoon, it afforded an opportunity for taking a walk, 

* It was much infested with rats ; the best prevention is to hang a hght 
up in the cabin, which generally frightens them away. 



126 



AN EVENING SCENE. 



sometimes of some miles, along the raised bank, before the heat 
grew intense ; and this habit was at once healthy, and affords 
every opportunity of enjoying the rich variety of cultivation 
w4iich adorns the valley, as well as of gaining an insight into 
the habits of the population. 

The hours of noon are those alone in which, even in summer, 
there is any sense of oppressive heat ; the roof of the cabin is 
then scorched, the atmosphere within is close and sultry, and 
you long for the shadow of a tree on shore. As the evening 
advanced and the heat declined, I generally mounted upon the 
roof of the cabin, and took my post by the old Nubian steers- 
man. The setting of the sun was looked for with anxious 
interest by the fasting sailors, and as he sank in glory behind 
the Libyan mountains, they revived from their languor, and be- 
gan to chat and sing, and exchange lively sallies of merriment. 
The grateful smoke of their evening meal curled up among 
the cordage, and it was pleasant to see them assembled around 
it, and grow more and more animated as the evening advanced. 
The swelling sails are reddened by the evening glow, and the 
little kangia glides almost dreamily along the enchanted river, 
old Nilus with his full and solemn flow. There is no describ- 
ing the beauty of the scene and hour, such as I felt it this 
evening on the approach to the village of Sheik Abade, the 
ancient Antinoopolis — no telling how gloriously the setting sun 
burnished the palm-groves which line the river's brink, and 
the Sheik's house and sycamore-tree, the bright sails, and 
the young camels browsing among the verdure ; nor the vivid- 
ness with which all the objects were reflected into the glassy cur- 
rent, how gorgeous were the hues of sunset upon the river and 
the rocky hills, how sacred the stillness of the hour, and the 
intense tranquillity of that broad Egyptian sky. A musky 
fragrance coming off* deliciously from the shores, the monoto- 
nous creak of the water-wheel, the distant and fitful cries from 
the villages, or the shrill note of some solitary bird flitting across 
the stilly expanse of the river, all add to the luxurious melan- 



BEYADIEH. 



127 



choly of the scene and hour. As the sun sank, in the midst of the 
rosy Hght with which all nature yet glowed and trembled, (' the 
after-glow,' as some have well called it,) the yellow orb of the 
moon uprose from behind the eastern hills, and the mingled 
hght of the two luminaries long blended in beauty indescrib- 
able, till the red light paling more and more, gave place to 
night, scarcely less bright, but softer and more spiritual than 
day, and yet indescribably intoxicating. The stars came out, 
not dimly, as in northern climates, but starting up at once 
resplendently from behind the hills with almost supernatural 
brilliancy, casting far down into the depths of the still river 
reflections so wonderfully vivid, that the boat, as it noiselessly 
cleft the waters, seemed to float through liquid space studded 
with all its orbs. At such, times, the simple beauty of such 
scenes alone would be sufficient enjoyment, but you are never 
here without in addition a haunting sense of the wonders that 
line the banks of the river, remains of the past empire of that 
great people to whom its waters were sacred. 

We reached Beyadieh about eight, the wind then sunk, and 
we moored the boat a little in advance of the village. I went 
on shore to enjoy the beauty of the night, and was walking up 
and down, when a few Copts, returning from a neighboring 
convent, attracted by my Frank costume, came up and claimed 
Christian brotherhood, with many sincere demonstrations of 
good-will. We sat down on the bank of the river and con- 
versed. They were fine-looking men, the chief of the adjoining 
village, which was entirely held by Copts. From all that I 
could gather, they complained less of the exactions of the 
pasha, and seemed in more comfortable condition, than the 
peasants elsewhere ; their lands are also better and more skil- 
fully cultivated, and thus the burden of oppression falls more 
lightly on them. There is a considerable number of them in 
this neighborhood, and they possess several convents. 

The following account is given of the foundation of Antino- 
opolis. Upon his visit to Egypt, the emperor Hadrian was 



128 ANTINOOPOLIS. 

accompanied by his favorite, the beautiful Antinous, of whom 
so many busts and statues are to be seen in different museums. 
The emperor had consulted the Egyptian astrologers as to his 
future fate and the welfare of the empire, and the oracle had 
declared that his prosperity must be purchased by the sacrifice 
of whatever was most dear to him. Upon this the grateful 
Antinous, to secure the welfare of his master, threw himself 
into the Nile, near the village of Besa. Well may it be said 
that 

" Nothing in his life 
Became him like the leaving it." 

Hadrian built a city by which to commemorate his favorite, 
named Antinoopolis, and the country round the new city was 
formed into the " Antinoite nome." It was, of course, rather a 
Roman than an Egyptian city. There are very extensive traces 
of its ancient magnificence, but none of its monuments are now 
standing. 

The wind freshened toward morning, and w^e pursued our 
way, in the evening reaching the tremendous precipices of j 
Djebel Aboufodde, on the Arabian side, which hang fearfully I 
above the rapid current, and assume, as the boat passes close j 
under them, an aspect of terrific grandeur ; far up among their i 
clefts are seen the caverns formerly tenanted by the ascetics of ! 
Upper Egypt, where Athanasius sought, it is said, shelter 
during the course of his eventful career. Here the gusts of 
wind, coming suddenly down from the high eastern desert 
through the ravines of the mountain, required the utmost 
attention ; we had several narrow escapes, our main-sail was 
taken in, and still, impelled forward by a strong wind, we | 
swiftly advanced, in spite of the current, toward the town of j 
Manfaloot. This town, rapidly dechning in consideration, 
stands on a high bank of earth above the river, which sweeps 
round it with such fury that it has carried away large portions, 
and threatens to ruin the entire place. The wind increasing to , 



MANFALOOT BY NIGHT. 129 

a gale, soon brought us alongside our friends the Mohammedan 
pilgrims, whose superior saiHng qualities had enabled them to 
get there before us. 

The night was wild and stormy, and the boat rocked about so 
unpleasantly, that I was glad to exchange the scene and go 
ashore into the town. • A lamp twinkling in the small minaret 
guided us on our way, and a stranger scene I have rarely be- 
held than that presented by the streets of Manfaloot by night. 
They were so obstructed by sleepers in the dust and sand, 
that it was difficult to avoid tumbling over some of them. 
The sides of the street were occupied by the rational crea- 
tion — dogs, camels, and asses irregularly filling up the center. 
Few of the wretched inhabitants seemed to have any cover- 
ing but the scanty rags which formed their unique apparel ; 
but in some cases, the father of a family had literally " spread 
his skirt" over the whole brood as they lay nestled up together 
in a heap. Numerous blind men were grouping about in a cloud 
of dust with long sticks to find a suitable corner out of the 
main thoroughfare, and out of reach of the hoofs of camels 
and asses. Whether this sleeping 'sub dio' was a matter of 
preference, or rendered necessary by the houseless condition 
of these poor people, I can not say, but few things, even in this 
land of misery, struck me with a more painful impression. 
Blind beggars abounded in the morning; one, having found 
out there was a Frank boat, got a boy to guide him to its side, 
and, in piteous terms, entreated for a garment : all he had on 
scarce served the purpose of decency, and had been so patched 
and darned, that there was no longer any place for needle to 
hold ; no skill could hold its tatters together much longer, and 
I expected with every gust to see them decompose, and leave 
him without a rag : poor fellow, his need was certainly des- 
perate as his entreaties were urgent. It so happened, that I 
had on board an old pair of Turkish cotton drawers, which I 
had taken to go into the water, and I tossed them to him ; he 
passed his fingers carefully over them, and when he found they 



130 



SIOUT. 



were actually whole and sound, and had not even once been 
mended, his joy threatened to overset his reason, and somewhat 
peril his neck ; for with an outpouring of thanks and blessings, 
he stumbled back to the town over the broken ground, with a 
dangerous rapidity I should not have supposed him to be capa- 
ble of. 

In the mountain range opposite Manfaloot are the celebrated 
crocodile mummy cases, which have been explore! with so 
much difficulty and danger. I had no desire to be half suf- 
focated in quest of the sacred animals, and sailed away with a 
fair wind, on my upward course to Thebes. In the course of 
this evening we brought to, and ' took tea' quietly in a se- 
cluded grove of palms in sight of Siout, the capital of Upper 
Egypt, and residence of the governor. This is a considerable 
town, with handsome mosques ; and the environs are very rich 
and pleasing. Behind it and overlooking the valley of the 
Nile rises a mountain range, perforated with numerous sepul- 
chers, an excursion to which is gratifying, for the sake of the 
extensive view. Siout is the resort of the caravans of slaves 
from Darfur, who, after being hunted down in their native 
country, are brought here across the desert from the great 
oasis, at a considerable loss of life. It has, moreover, a still 
more infamous distinction, as being the chief place where the 
black guardians of the harem are fitted by a torturing process, 
and by the loss of manhood, for their degrading functions. 
One shudders with horror at such a concatenation of atrocities, 
and at the state of society which demands so many unhappy 
victims. It would scarcely be believed, if the degraded state 
of Christianity in the East were not so well known, that its 
Coptic professors were the agents in this most horrible violation 
of humanity. 

After a short stay at this place I resumed my course up the 
river, the scenery very striking, and the wind unusually favor- 
able and strong ; so that the whole way to Girgeh we had a 
sailing match with the pilgrim boat, which took but very little 



GIRGEH. 



131 



the lead of us ; sometimes, indeed, we ran alongside her, and I 
got a peep into the cabins where these pious gentlemen had 
hidden away their Turkish beauties — for one at least was lovely. 
The finest sailing was under the noble crags of Gebel Sheik 
Heredee ; it became necessary to take in the main-sail, and 
yet we tore through the water at a delightful rate. In the 
afternoon, we ran along a flat shore, and were assailed by 
loud cries for bread from the naked and half-naked children, 
(a scene painfully reminding me of Ireland,) who ran alongside 
our boat, leaping gullies and wading canals, with all *the eager- 
ness of famine : one fine young girl threw herself naked into the 
river, and gaining the boat, held on as we sailed, (for she would 
not come on deck,) a feat that obtained an unusual beckshish. 
Salem got on the top of the cabin, and we threw away among 
them, in the wildness of the scramble, every loaf we had on 
board, and I was fain to put up with a stale fragment till we 
reached Girgeh late in the evening, after the finest day's sail- 
ing we had during our entire cruise. 

We found several boats moored at the landing-place without 
the town ; from the next to our own proceeded loud chatter- 
ing, and the light caught upon the naked dusky skins and 
woolly heads of a number of negroes. I went ashore and found 
this to be a Djerm descending the river laden with female 
slaves for the Cairo market, the major part negro girls of 
little value, with some few more delicate specimens, however, 
of Abyssinian beauty, much esteemed, as Mr. Lane informs us, 
by the voluptuaries of the capital. 

I went on shore very early the next morning ; it was a dead 
calm on the river. The principal Jellab, or slave-dealer, was 
seated on the shore, apparently waiting the chance of a pur- 
chaser. A number of the negro girls were lounging about 
upon the sunny shore, reveling in the grateful heat; while 
others sat upon the boat. They were fine, well-made creatures, 
glossy as satin, and in excellent condition ; for the most part 
lively, careless chatterers, and rather bearing out the accounts 



132 THE SLAVE BOAT. 

of some travelers of warm imagination, who represented them as 
pm'ely sensual, and always anxious to attract a purchaser as 
soon as possible. Whatever suffering they might have en- 
dured in the circumstances of their original capture, they were 
to all appearance taken very great care of. A fat, flabby old 
Turk now came waddHng down from Girgeh, and the Abys- 
sinians were produced and shown. They did not, however, 
answer his expectations, in fact, I had myself seen far hand- 
somer in the slave bazaar at Cairo, and he fell back upon the 
negro girls. A group was now formed round one whom I had 
not noticed before, and who presented in her reluctant, down- 
cast manner, a singular contrast to the rest. Her dress con- 
sisted merely of a string of leathern thongs around the loins, 
but a large wrapper was thrown loosely over her. The Jellab 
placed her, like a connoisseur, and proceeded to dwell upon 
her ' points,' but she did not somehow tell upon the sensual 
fantasy of the old Turk : he was provoked by her air of dejec- 
tion, and rudely thrust up her declining head ; next, with a 
cautious manipulation from head to foot, proceeded, in jockey 
phrase, to ascertain her soundness ; and, finally, hastily whip- 
ping off the scanty covering from the poor shrinking creature, 
he proceeded to satisfy, with a hasty glance, the last and most 
important particulars of his curiosity. The Jellab looked up 
and smiled with an unanswerable air, but the old Turk looked 
dubious and unsatisfied, the crowd of callous and laughing spec- 
tators were, as usual, divided in opinion, while the defenceless 
subject of their gaze and controversy stood cowering before 
them with an air of abject, hopeless despondency. One might 
see that, although of a race supposed to be comparatively desti- 
tute of feeling, nature had made her of a mold too fine for 
such rude handling; perhaps some home remembrance came 
across her mind, for a more melancholy expression I never wit- 
nessed in a human creature. Finally, the old Turk declined to 
purchase her, and she walked listlessly back again to her corner 
in the hold of the Djerm. 



SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 133 

Sitting somewhat apart was a very interesting little boy, whose 
appearance struck me, which, when the Jellab observed, he urged 
him forward to solicit a beckshish. I inquired, through Salem, 
if he also was for sale ; the Jellab, with a smile, replied that he 
was, and that he could recommend him too, for he was his own 
son, his mother being a handsome Abyssinian slave, by the 
sale of whose offspring he thus expected to reconcile profit 
with pleasure. It was some consolation to hope that this poor 
child might find in the humanity of a Turkish or Arab master 
the protection which his own father denied ; that if gifted by 
nature he might perchance rise to a high station in society, 
and become the counsellor of princes, — a redeeming feature in | 
the system of oriental slavery, which is wanting in the far | 
more cruel and hopeless despotism of the great western re- \ 
public. 

Scenes like these are painful to witness even in Egypt, but 
what are they compared with such as follow ? " The next case," 
says a correspondent of the Cincinnati Herald, " was that of a 
young white woman, sixteen years old, with a young child. I 
say white woman, because the auctioneer said she was only one- 
eighth black, and I have seen many of the fair girls of Ohio 
who could not boast of as fair complexion, or as good figure or 
features. She came upon the stand with her infant in her 
arms, in the deepest misery. A gentleman, who had taken his 
seat beside me, observing that I was very interested, remarked 
he thought I was a stranger in that country. I answered that 
I was. ' These things look odd to you ?' ' They do.' Said 
he, ' You see that man in the crowd,' pointing to one within a 
few paces of the stand, ' that is Dr. C. He hired that girl last 
year, and that child is his !' The Georgian bid three hundred 
dollars ; some one bid four ; the Georgian bid four fifty ; the 
girl cast a piercing glance at the crowd,, — her eyes rested on 
Dr. C., who instantly averted his face. She gazed one moment, 
then burst into a torrent of tears. She was knocked off to the 
Georgian. Thus the fiend saw his child and its mother sold 



16 



134 



EGYPT AND AMERICA. 



into southern bondage. My God ! thought I, is it possible ? / 
was cured of my pro-slavery principles." 

While stealing in my kangia along the solitary patriarch of 
rivers, I had often called to mind the huge booming steamboat 
of the American waters with its hundreds of passengers, and 
fallen into a train of thought arising out of the contrast. There 
was no doubt a time when the banks of the Nile and the Mis- 
sissippi were the haunts of the wandering savage, and the first 
civilization that arose on their banks is alike unrecorded and 
mysterious. But in the course of ages grew up that great 
Egyptian monarchy, which long subsisted, powerful and prosper- 
ous, whose civilization has influenced even our own times ; while 
still the king of western floods continued to roll through savan- 
nahs peopled only by the wandering hunter. Of that empire 
despotism, caste, and slavery were, however, constituent ele- 
ments, and the admiration with which we regard the monu- 
ments of its grandeur is dashed by the reflection that we are 
looking on the labors of human victims. 

In a later age, when Christianity had induced a more humane 
civilization, America commenced among the vast primeval 
forest her noble and boundless career. Free from the chains 
of the old world, but with the advantage of all their arts and 
sciences, a century or two suffice to bring about results which, 
under less favorable circumstances, ages might not have 
eflfected. With wonderful energy the forests are felled, cities 
arise, emigration pours hosts into the waste, steam joins together 
th^ remotest corners of the immense territory, which is rapidly 
filling up with its millions of inhabitants ; while the population 
of Egypt, under an exterminating policy, is as rapidly lessening. 
What contrast was ever more striking than the relative condi- 
tion of the two countries at the present day ? Egypt, fallen and 
decrepit, bowed under oppression and the paralyzing influence 
of a false religion. America, daily rising in power, a land of 
light, freedom, enterprise, and Christianity ! By what extraor- 
dinary chance is it then, that, unlike in every thing else, they 



THE SHADOOF. 135 

should resemble each other only in one damning particular — 
how unaccountable the infatuation, that, under circumstances so 
opposite, the citizens of a free republic can tolerate the worst 
institutions of the old world ; that patriots and Christians, ay, 
even ministers of that religion of mercy, should be so blind to 
the guilt and cruelty of this system, as even to plead for it the 
sanction of Divine prescription ! 

A few miles back from Girgeh are the ruins of Abydos, or 
This, already alluded to in the historical introduction. There 
are the remains of two temples, partly buried in sand and rub- 
bish. They were built by Osirei and his son Rameses the Great. 
In one of these, sacred to Osiris, was found the famous 
tablet of Abydos, containing a series of the names of the royal 
predecessors of Rameses, agreeing perfectly with a similar one 
at Thebes. Unfortunately the portion containing the earlier 
kings was broken off. This important fragment is now in 
the British Museum. 

Between Girgeh and Keneh the scenery is in many places 
exceedingly fine, especially in the neighborhood of Kasr e 
Sayd, where the Dom or Theban palm begins to blend its 
peculiar fan-like foliage with that bearing the date, and to add 
to the enchanting richness of the vegetation. The fertile, level 
plain, covered with luxuriant crops of Indian corn, the finest 
imaginable, with sugar-cane, and a variety of leguminous 
herbs, among which the nutritious and palatable bamyeh is 
conspicuous at this season, delights the eye with its perpetual 
greenness, as the boat glides past the luxuriant and scented banks 
at even-tide. How many beautiful scenes of this kind recur 
as we advance ! and how blessed indeed would be this land, if 
the race who cultivate it enjoyed the advantages of civilization ; 
if the comfortable homes of freemen replaced the mud hovels 
and squalid misery of the poor Fellahs ! The mode of irriga- 
tion adopted in Upper Egypt differs from that seen below Cairo, 
the water-wheels being replaced by the Shadoof. In general 
there is but one man with a lever, but in this instance the power 



136 



THE DOM AND DATE PALMS. 



is doubled. It will be seen that the machine consists of two 
pillars of wood with a horizontal bar across, and levers formed 
by a branch of a tree, having at one end a heavy weight com- 
posed of mud, and at the other a vessel of leather or basket- 
work, which is made to descend into the river, and hoisted by 
the assistance of the weight to the level of the land above, then 
poured into a trough hollowed out, from which it is distributed 
in channels about the surface of the land. When the water of 
the river is low, four or five of these machines are required to 
raise the water to the necessary level. Few occupations can be 
more laborious than working the Shadoof; it is, in fact, the 
heaviest duty of the Egyptian peasant. Its use, according to 
Wilkinson, is as ancient as the time of Osirtesen L, the sup- 
posed cotemporary of Moses. 

The engraving also displays the predominant foliage on the 
banks of the Nile. The date palm is the great ornament and 
blessing of Egypt ; not only is its fruit a delicious article of food 
and the principal sustenance of the lower classes, but its trunk 
is used for building purposes, and the branches serve for the 
manufacture of a variety of light articles, which are both cheap 
and serviceable ; its long leaves are made into mats, baskets, 
sacks, &c. ; and its fibers supply material for the ropes used in 
rigging and other purposes. Almost every thing for ordinary 
use in Egypt is made of the clay of the Nile, or the palm-tree. 
The Dom or Thebaid palm is also very picturesque, with its 
singular radiating groups of fan-like branches, and its thick 
clusters of dark, fig-like fruit. It is peculiar to Upper Egypt, 
and I have seen one or two near the site of Ezion Geber, 
at the head of the CElanitic branch of the Red Sea. The 
density of the palm-groves varies with the richness of the soil, 
and some places are noted for the peculiar excellence of the 
fruit. At one of these, while descending the river, my servant 
requested permission to go on shore and purchase a quantity 
to take to Cairo. On returning to the boat, he hung up in my 
cabin one of the most magnificent clusters ever seen, the flavor 



DANGER OF ROBBERS. 



137 



of which was very far superior to that of any other I had ever 
tasted. 

We drew up to the bank this evening, in a wild spot on the 
western side, where we found another boat moored, and a num- 
ber of men on shore by a large fire : they had been quarrying 
among the mountains on the opposite side, but considered it 
unsafe to remain there at night, owing to a band of robbers 
who were said to occupy the country thence to Keneh, and 
after committing depredations both by land and water, retreat 
among the fastnesses of the Arabian chain. I had heard so 
many reports from the boatmen of the insecurity of particular 
places, hitherto without any confirmation, that I was disposed 
to treat this also as a fiction, but subsequent information at 
Keneh attested the truth of these reports. It was currently be- 
lieved that the governor of the place was in league with the 
brigands, and shared the plunder. We fired two or three 
rounds to assure any who might cross the river of a warm re- 
ception, and for the first time on the river felt some slight ap- 
prehension of an attack. The men were all armed with 
formidable sticks about six feet long, and a good watch was 
kept, but our rest was undisturbed. Subsequently I w^as told 
at Keneh that they never attacked a boat with the Frank flag, 
so that by day there was no danger to be apprehended. This 
incident, qpcurring in a country so safe as Egypt, rather sur- 
prised us, but it was regarded as an exception, and the 
governor, who was suspected of connivance, has since been 
removed from his post. 

Advancing to the southward, there is a very perceptible dif- 
ference in the appearance of the people : they grow^ darker and 
heavier in look, have less of the genuine Arab, and appear to 
be a mixed race, though perhaps the increasing heat of the 
climate alone may account for this peculiarity. 

A voyage up the Nile without the sight of a crocodile must 
appear strangely incomplete, since there is hardly a book of 
travel that does not abound in feats of marksmanship at the 

18 



138 



THE CROCODILK 



expense of the sacred animal. This is owing to the circum- 
stance, that most travelers ascend the Nile in winter, when the 
river is low, whereas, it being with me the season of the inunda- 
tion, the sand-banks upon which the monster is wont to disport 
himself were of course submerged. The following particulars 




aie derived from Messrs. Bonomi and Sharpe. "Crocodiles 
were formerly found much farther down the river than at 
present, as the hunting them is represented on the^ tombs of 
Memphis ; at the present day they are not met with lower than 
about Siout. They are seen in groups of three or four, basking ^ 
upon the sunny shoals, and take to the river when startled at the 
approach of a boat. There is an old story connected with them 
so curious, that we might well have been justified in doubting 
its truth, but for the attestations of numerous travelers. It is, 
that a small bird, called from its cry the ' Sic-sac,' hovers about 
this ungainly monster, and warns him of the approach of danger 
by dashing to and fro against his head, and uttering its shrill 
peculiar note, upon which the crocodile seeks safety under 
water. This was lately described by the Hon. Mr. Curzon, who 



THE CROCODILE. 



139 



himself witnessed it. It is very rarely that they are known to at- 
tack any one. In some parts of Egypt the crocodile was wor- 
shiped as a god ; in others, killed and eaten as a public enemy. 
Juvenal, who held some military post in the province, found 
much amusement in satirizing the superstitions of Egypt. But, 
adds Mr. Sharpe, he sometimes takes a poet's liberty, and when 
he tells us that man's was the only flesh that they ate without 
sinning, we are not to believe him to the letter. He gives a 
lively picture of a fight which he saw between the citizens of 
the two towns of Ombos and Tentyra, who had a long-standing 
quarrel about their gods. At Ombos they worshiped the 
crocodile and the crocodile-headed god Savak, while at Tentyra 
they worshiped the goddess Athor, and were celebrated for 
their skill in catching and kiUing crocodiles. So, taking an 
advantage of a feast or holyday, as the people of Modena and 
Bologna did in the days of Tassoni, they marched out for a 
fight. The men of Ombos were beaten and put to flight, but 
one of them stumbling as he ran away, was caught and torn to 
pieces, and, as Juvenal adds, eaten by the men of Tentyra." 

Crocodiles were also taken and tamed by the ancient Egyp- 
tians, who made pets of them, decorating them with ear-rings 
and bracelets, and pampering them with roast meat and wine. 
Amid the variety of animals brought from the subjugated 
provinces to Rome, to be exhibited and destroyed in the amphi- 
theater, was also, as Strabo informs us, the crocodile, thirty-six 
being introduced at once for that purpose by Augustus, who 
were killed by the gladiators ; and there is mention also of an 
artificial lake at Rome, in which tame ones were exhibited. In 
the British Museum is a statue of a man of Dendera performing 
feats of agility on a crocodile's back. The aperture or pupil of 
the eye contracts into a narrow^ perpendicular line, and the 
Arabs relate that during the season of the inundation, when the 
water of the Nile is considerably darkened by the quantity of 
clay held in solution, it is totally blind, confirming in some 
measure the statement of Herodotus. 



140 



TEMPLE OF DENDERA. 



I had expected that we should have reached Keneh in the 
morning, but on awaking found the boat moored at the nearest 
point to Dendera, while Salem had been on shore to procure 
donkeys, so that after breakfast I had nothing to do but land 
and proceed to the temple, with feelings of high expectation 
and curiosity, this being the first, as well as, by common 
report, the most beautiful in Egypt. The first opening view 
entirely disappointed me, nor could I help contrasting the 
effect of Greek and Roman ruins — of the temples of Athens, 
and Girgenti, and Baalbec, their ranges of columns and half- 
ruined porticoes, rising in picturesque disorder against the 
sky, with the heavy, square walls and flat roof of the Egyp- 
tian temple, cutting into a back-ground of yellow sand. Nor 
did a nearer approach altogether remove this unfavorable im- 
pression ; the faQade, though vast, seemed heavy and half- 
barbarous, and inspired none of that mingled awe and delight 
which I had anticipated. On entering, however, one can not 




fail to experience the peculiar emotions produced by Egyptian 
architecture, a feeling of gloomy sublimity which awes rather 



THE GREAT PORTICO. 141 

than elevates, and which to the ordinary spectator is greatly 
heightened by the sculptures and hieroglyphics which every- 
where cover the walls, in mute, mysterious meaning, leading 
back our ideas to the recondite religious ideas which they 
symbolize, and inspiring a deep and almost trembling curiosity 
as to the rites which were celebrated in the recesses of 
these soul-subduing temples. The flat roof in its dusky ob- 
scurity, and the grand portal of simple and heavy proportion, 
with the inner chambers receding into utter darkness, add to 
the effect of this first impression. 

The columns of the portico, of which there are twenty-four, 
are peculiar ; at least there is no other instance of them on this 
scale. Capitals, whose forms and details are generally borrowed 
from the lotus and palm, and other plants and flowers, consist 
here of the head of the goddess Athor, the Venus of the Egyp- 
tians, repeated fourfold, with a superincumbent addition which 
gives a heavy and shapeless character to the entire column. 
Of the faces scarcely one remains entire, which very much 
impairs the effect doubtless intended to be produced by the 
universal presence of the face, characterized, as Sir F. Henniker 
remarks, by a "bewitching half-modesty," which everywhere 
beamed upon the intoxicated worshiper of the genial power. 

The great portico, comparatively a very modern specimen of 
Egyptian art, was added in the reign of Tiberius. "On its 
ceiling," observes Mr. Sharpe, " is the well-known zodiac, which 
our antiquaries once thought was of a great antiquity, but the 
sign of the Scales in the zodiac might alone have taught them 
that it could not be older than the reign of Augustus, who gave 
that name to the group of stars which before formed the spread- 
ing claws of the scorpion. We can not but admire the zeal of 
the Egyptians by whom this work was then finished. They 
were treated as slaves by their Greek fellow-countrymen ; they, 
the fallen descendants of the conquering kings of Thebes, had 
every third year their houses ransacked in search of arms : the 
Romans only drained the province of its wealth, and the temple 



142 INTERIOR OF THE TEMPLE. 

had perhaps never been heard of by the emperor, who could 
have been Httle aware that the most lasting monument of his 
reign was being raised in the distant province of Egypt. We 
can not but admire a people, who, denying themselves all beyond 
the coarsest food and clothing as luxuries, thought a noble, 
massive temple for the worship of the gods one of the first 
necessaries of life." 

Briefly to describe the interior arrangements of the temple, 
we quote from Wilkinson. 

To the great portico succeeds a hall of six columns with three 
rooms on either side : then a central chamber, communicating 
on one side with two small rooms, and on the other with a 
staircase. This is followed by another similar chamber, (with 
two rooms on the west and one on the east side,) immediately 
before the isolated sanctuary, which has a passage leading 
round it, and communicating with three rooms on either side. 
The total length of the temple is 93 paces, (or about 220 feet,) 
by 41, or across the portico 50. 

Advancing through the gloom of the succeeding hall, we 
prepared to explore these smaller chambers and passages. Op- 
pressed by a close, foul odor, and not without apprehension of 
treading on snakes and scorpions concealed in the loose dust, 
we lighted our candles and began cautiously to descend; the 
bats, startled by the glare, roused from their obscure crannies, 
and madly flitting to and fro, with their slight curdling cry and 
the whizzing of their filthy wings, threatened to extinguish our 
lights, and dash their obscene bodies full into our averted 
faces, — an idea which even now inspires a shudder of disgust. 
Such was our welcome into these narrow, dusky passages, once 
thronged with the votaries of a voluptuous and debasing 
superstition. Screening as well as might be our eyes from 
these attacks, we traced out with our candles the elaborate 
sculptures with which the walls are everywhere profusely 
covered throughout these numerous smaller rooms, all minister- 
ing to the impression designed to be produced upon the spectator. 



KENEH. 



143 



In the smaller temple of Isis, behind the great temple, and 
in another, at some distance in front of it, are lateral columns 
bearing the distorted figure of a Typhonian monster, which 
so curiously contrasts with the hea'd of Isis in the portico of 
the principal temple, as to have given rise to the impression, 
that it was dedicated to the evil genius of the Egyptians ; but 
according to Wilkinson, this idea is erroneous, the building in 
question having also a relation to Athor. 

The wood-cut gives a sufficient general idea of the great 
temple. On the architrave is a procession to the goddess, and 
the flat sides of the building are reheved by enormous sculp- 
tures, which have, however, little or none of that historical or 
artistic interest attached to those of Thebes. 

We crossed by the ferry over the river to Keneh, having 
sent on the boat before. We had some difficulty in finding it 
among the many that lined the bank, for this is the most 
bustling place above Cairo, owing to its being the starting- 
point for the port ol Cosseir on the Red Sea, three days across 
the desert, and more especially for the transport of the nu- 
merous pilgrims who now prefer this route for Mecca to the 
more toilsome one by way of Suez and Akaba. The supply of 
their wants creates much activity in the bazaars, and there is 
reason to fear that there are few of the pious Hadji who do not 
somewhat increase the amount of their transgressions at Keneh. 
Mr. St. John, in his rapturous description of the temple of 
Dendera, dedicated to the Egyptian Venus, says that the power 
in whose honor it was built, still protects its fane from utter 
destruction. He might rather have said that, abandoning her 
ancient haunts to the owls and bats, she has simply crossed over 
the river, to establish her peculiar worship with an absence of 
all mystery, and even decency, by day as by night, among the 
thousand mud hovels of the modern town. " It is difficult to 
conjecture," says a reverend traveler, " what may have given to 
Keneh a distinction so peculiar and discreditable. Some people 
may think that its being a halting-place for the pilgrims is 



144 



KENEH. 



almost enough to account for the naystery, since * perils/ as 
Bacon remarks, ' commonly ask to be paid in pleasures.' " 

We found that our pilgrim boat had preceded us, and recog- 
nized all our Mussulman acquaintances in going about the town, 
who saluted us very courteously. They seemed quite superior 
to a large proportion of their brethren, a set of dirty fanatics, 
lounging about in the cafes, whose sallow visages were length- 
ened by the compulsory fast of the Ramadan. " Sufficiently dis- 
agreeable," says Hope, " as it might appear for every purpose of 
salvation when it falls in winter, the month of the Ramadan seems 
absolutely invented for the destruction of the Moslemin species 
when the procession of the lunar months brings it round to the 
longest and hottest days in summer. It is then that the Chris- 
tian, rising from a plenteous meal, if he has common prudence, 
avoids all intercourse whatever with the fasting Turk, whose 
devout stomach, void of all but sourness and bile, grumbles 
loudly over each chance-medley of the sort as over malice pre- 
pense, rises in anger at the supposed insult, and vents its acri- 
mony in bitter invectives." 

The fair companions of our pilgrims, whose glances from 
their boat had sometimes solaced me in the dreary absence 
of female charms upon the Nile, were lodged in the upper 
story of a sort of Khan, built by a wealthy and portly native. 
Of this building, the lower portion had a rude portico which 
opened on the river, and where a Frank or two in the employ 
of the pasha were wont to smoke away the tedious hours and 
look out for the passage of travelers, whose conversation might 
solace their compulsory banishment. 

Here we had quite a levee. First came the aforesaid portly 
personage of dignified presence, who acted as agent to the 
English at Cosseir, and fulfilled in some sort the functions of a 
vice-consul. He was very complimentary, and begged to know 
if there was any thing he could do for us. We brought for- 
ward the delinquencies of the Reis and sailors, with whom we 
had been of late abominably harassed, and he, in the hand- 



VISITORS AT KENEH. 



145 



somest way, offered to get them bastinadoed for us on our 
simple parole, and without the slightest inquiry, but this oblig- 
ing proposal we thought fit to renounce. He then earnestly 
pressed us to sup with him, when we should be entertained 
with certain of the more peculiar and recherche exhibitions of 
the dancing-girls. This dehcate compliment to our taste and 
morals we also declined, intending to depart at sunset. It was 
little we could offer him for all these favors. Some bottles of 
porter were produced, which, however, he preferred to take 
away with him rather than consume upon the spot, and our 
notions of his magnificent liberality received a. sad shock, when 
Salem whispered me next morning that he had sold them to 
the Italian doctors. Scarcely had he departed, before there 
came bowing in a brisk little Frenchman, about sixty, dry as 
a mummy, and as brown withal, dressed in a faded military 
suit of crimson and gold lace. He was, we found, an old 
colonel of Napoleon's, and had obtained from the pasha a 
grant of land, where he had established a little 'imperium in 
imperio' of his own. He ran on with all the lively politeness 
of his nation, told us that he had been long engaged in seekino- 
coal for Mehemet Ali, and that he had no doubt that he had, at 
last, made the inestimable discovery, the search after which, by 
the way, has cost already half the revenue of a province.* 

* The foUowing statement is making the round of the newspapers, and if 
true is of vast importance to Egypt. We maj soon hope to have steamers 
on the Upper Nile. The writer was acquainted with the French engineer 
alluded to, whom he met both on the Nile and on his return to Europe, 
when he spoke very confidently of his researches in this neighborhood.' 
"The Journal des Debats announces in a letter from Grand Cairo, the dis- 
covery, by a French civil engineer, of a stratum of coal in the vicinity of the 
Nile, toward Upper Egypt. Two engineers, an Englishman and a French- 
man, were employed to investigate the lands in the vicinity of the Nile for 
the discovery of coal about three years ago ; but these superficial inquirers 
reported that there was none, and that, moreover, none would be found ! The 
French engineer first mentioned, more diligent and more skUlful than his 
predecessors, has completely overthrown this bold assertion. The samples 
have been referred to a commission, and the excavations will be continued 
on a large scale." 

19 



146 VISITORS AT KENEH. 

"But," added the little man, '' entre nous, it is not for the pasha, 
but for you English, that I am doing all this, for it is agreed, of 
course, that you are to have possession of the country." To 
this speech, which reminded me of Talleyrand's celebrated say- 
ing, that speech was given man for the purpose of disguising 
his thoughts, I did not, of course, feel called upon to say any 
thing in reply. The Italian doctors in the service of the pasha 
also did us the honor of a visit. In fact, beside the desire to 
lighten their captivity by conversing with a passing stranger, 
they have an eye to a little private practice, and generally 
add a trifle to their slender pay by the infirmities of European 
travelers, or the peccadilloes of Mohammedan pilgrims. So 
much for Keneh, the most dissolute place in Egypt, upon 
which, after a very brief stay, we were happy enough to turn 
our backs. 

4 



CHAPTER V. 

THEBES. ITS HISTORY. LIBYAN SUBURB. TOMBS OF THE KINGS. MEDEENET 

IIABOU. MEMNONIUM. LUXOR AND KARNAK. 

And now, full of glowing anticipation, which in travel, as in 
every thing else, carries with it half the charm of existence, 
we spread our sails to a favoring breeze, and started on the last 
stage of our cruise ; — a few hours, and Thebes with all its won- 
ders w^ould open before us. Hardly had Keneh faded from our 
vision, ere we opened a view of the site of ancient Coptos, and 
could look far across the eastern desert in the direction of that 
old and well-beaten commercial route to Berenice on the Red 
Sea, by which the riches of the far east were once conveyed 
to the Nile, and thence floated down to Alexandria. 

Our progress by no means kept pace with my impatience, 
the breezes became light and languid, and sometimes dying 
away, left us becalmed under the burning noontide heat. Even 
the stimulus of a promised lamb upon the evening of our arrival 
could hardly induce the poor fasting sailors (it was the Rama- 
dan) to resume the toilsome process of tracking. As we thus 
slowly advanced, about noon we began to open the immense 
plain of Thebes, and to catch glimpses of its distant ruins. It 
was wholly unlike what I had anticipated. The expanse is so 
vast, miles intervening between the different groups of ruin, 
that a sense of void and emptiness was substituted for that 
lively and powerful effect I had expected would be produced 
by the first coup d'oeil of the ruined city. There were, indeed, 
Karnak and Luxor on the eastern side, the Memnonium and 



148 FIRST VIEW OF THE PLArN". 

Medeenet Habou on the western, with the hoary, awful Co- 
lossi, lonely landmarks in the midst of the plain ; but the 
effect of these objects was lost by distance. The only grand 
feature was the lofty, barren mountain of yellow sandstone 
overhanging the western quarter of the city, with the dark 
orifices of its countless tombs, and which seemed to reverberate 
the ardent rays of the vertical sun. 

If the eye was not gratified by this feeling of utter and 
mournful vacancy, the mind, perhaps, was not the less impressed. 
The river, once gay with numerous vessels, poured silently down 
under the golden heat of noon ; but our own bark alone lazily 
cleft its waters. No buildings appeared on the river-side, save 
on the western bank a solitary hovel, overhung by a stunted 
sycamore- tree, our destined landing-place. To this the exhausted 
sailors made fast the boat, put out a plank, and in a few moments 
were fallen fast asleep in the shadow of the old tree. The 
plain around us lay in breathless silence and sultry heat ; the 
mountains colorless as if calcined ; the distant temples like 
the blackened wrecks of a conflagration ; the palms, smitten by 
the sun, scarcely rustled their languid leaves ; the vegetation was 
parched, the over- arching sky of intense, oppressive brightness. 
For a long time not a sound reached us. From the shadow 
of the cabin I watched for some signs of the inhabitants, but for 
a long while not a being appeared in sight, till suddenly I saw, 
spurring toward the landing-place, a whole tribe of Ciceroni, 
donkey-boys and vendors of curiosities, who, from their sepul- 
chral dwellings in the distant cliffs of Gornou, had descried our 
boat, and were all eager to welcome and profit by the earliest trav- 
eler of the season. The appearance of these gentry was highly 
picturesque ; their faces and heavy features of Coptic mold — 
dark, almost to blackness — were set off by large turbans ; their 
long brown robes relieved by a sort of plaid shawl of gay and 
varied colors, and gracefully wreathed about their shoulders. 
There was a general rush into the boat, and testimonials from 
preceding travelers, scraps of papyrus and mummy cases, 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THEBES. 



149 



coins, scarabaei, &c., most suspiciously modern in appearance, 
were thrust into our hands. All the trade and business of 
modern Thebes was at once before us ; it had moved down from 
the tombs of Gornou to the river's bank, for the sole object of 
extracting a few piastres from the purse of a solitary traveler. 

Such was our approach to this great city, the origin of which 
is too remote to be within the ken of history. The older monu- 
ments of Theban sculpture, says Mr. Sharpe, who, it should be 
remembered, is one of the most cautious of Egyptian inquirers, 
teach us the names of numerous kings of Thebes, as also of 
Memphis, and of the Arab or Phenician shepherds ; and though 
there may be doubts as to the order in which these early 
dynasties are to be placed, yet they leave us in no doubt as to 
the high antiquity which must be granted to this earliest of na- 
tions. Greek history begins with the Trojan war. Jewish 
history begins seven hundred years earlier, with the migration 
of Abraham from Chaldsea ; but even when this father of the 
Hebrew nation led his herds to drink of the waters of the Nile, 
Egypt was already a highly civilized country. It was after the fall 
of This, or Abydos, that Thebes rose to be the capital of Upper 
Egypt ; and it was, perhaps, in the reign of the second or third 
Theban king that Abraham entered the Delta. Osirtesen I., 
who raised the obeHsk at Heliopolis, is the first great name in 
the history of Thebes ; he was the builder of the older and 
smaller part of the temple of Karnak, which served as the 
nucleus around which his successors grouped other and more 
colossal additions. This early Theban monarchy was, in fact, 
a religious community, in which the palace was a temple, the 
people worshipers at the gate, and the monarch the chief 
priest. The dynasty of Osirtesen was terminated by the con- 
quest of Upper Egypt by the Memphite monarchs who erected 
the pyramids. 

The irruption of the shepherd kings who conquered Mem- 
phis, extended also to Thebes, over which they obtained a 
temporary mastery. Amosis, king of Thebes, had the glory of 



150 THOTHMOSIS. — AMUNOTHPH. 

driving these barbarian invaders from the Egyptian soil ; and 
from his reign we may date the rise of Upper Egypt to its 
palmiest state of political supremacy and splendor. The 
palaces, temples, and tombs of Thebes now increased in size and 
beauty with each succeeding monarch. Amunothph, Thothmo- 
sis, and especially the beautiful Nitocris, the last of the race of 
the Memphite sovereigns, by whose marriage with Thothmosis 
Upper and Lower Egypt were united, continued to make im- 
portant additions to fhe temple at Karnak. Nitocris also 
built the temple or palace, now called Dayr el Bahree, at the foot 
of the Libyan hills, being the most westerly temple in Thebes, 
at the extremity of the Assaseef (see plan.) A straight Dromos, 
or avenue, sixteen hundred feet long, between a double row of 
sphynxes, now destroyed, led from the first gateway of this 
temple to the first court ; a second slope of three hundred and 
fifty feet further, is the doorway into the inner court; three 
hundred further, the second granite doorway, leading into the 
small vaulted rooms, and the chambers tunneled into the moun- 
tain-side. Thothmosis III., her successor, also added greatly 
to the magnificence of Karnak, as also to other parts of Egypt. 
The sculptures in the tombs display a procession of seventeen 
nations, comprising Abyssinians, Ethiopians, Arabians, and 
Asiatic nations bordering on the Nile, who are bringing their 
costly gifts in homage to this king. To him is attributed 
the formation of the lake of Moeris. The Theban monarchy 
had now reached its full extent, comprising Upper and Lower 
Egypt with Ethiopia. To Thothmosis succeeded Amunothph 
II., in whose reign some place the Exodus of the Israelites. His 
grandson, Amunothph III., added to the temple of Karnak, and 
also commenced that of Luxor : it is his statue, now called the 
" Vocal Memnon," which first salutes the traveler, as he ap- 
proaches Thebes, like a venerable landmark in history. The 
tomb of Amunothph is one of the oldest and most extensive. Ra- 
meses I. soon followed Amunothph, and with his family the glory 
of Thebes arose to its utmost height. His son, Oimenepthah, 



RAMESES THE GREAT. 151 

erected the stupendous hall of Karnak, the walls of which are 
covered with the most spirited sculptures in Egypt, represent- 
ing his Asiatic conquests. He storms their cities among the 
mountains, and leads back his prisoners in triumph to the 
temple of Amun Ka. The river Nile is known in this sculp- 
ture by the crocodiles swimming about in it, and the bridge 
over it is, perhaps, the earliest met with in history. The tomb 
of this king, which we shall presently describe, is the most 
beautiful in Egypt, the paintings being almost as fresh and 
vivid as at the day of their execution. 

Amunmai Rameses II., the son of the last king, was the 
monarch under whom Upper Egypt rose to its greatest height 
in arms, in arts, and in wealth. He finished the palace of the 
Memnonium or Miamunei, at Abydos, so called from his own 
name, Miamun, or Amunmai. He also finished the temple of 
Osiris in the same city, and on one of the walls he carved that 
list of his forefathers, now in the British Museum, which is 
known by the name of the tablet of Abydos, a monument which 
has guided us safely in this history through seventeen reigns. 
He added to Osirtesen's old temple at Karnak, and finished 
Amunothph's temple at Luxor, and his father's temple at Old 
Quorneh. Thus Thebes had already four large fortified tem- 
ples or palaces, the three just mentioned and that of Queen 
Nitocris at Dahr el Bahree ; and to these Rameses II. added a 
new palace, w^iich, like that of Abydos, was by the Greeks 
called the Memnonium. In the first court-yard was a colossal 
statue of himself, larger than any other in Egypt ; and in the 
second yard were two smaller statues, from one of which was 
taken the colossal head now in the British Museum. The 
spacious rooms, with the columns which once upheld the roofs, 
are still gazed on with wonder by our travelers, and were 
standing in all their glory when Hecatseus traveled in Upper 
Egypt. He praises the inscription over the hbrary door, which 
called the books the medicine of the mind. Carved and 
painted on the walls of the Memnonium are the king's victories 



152 



CONQUESTS OF THE EGYPTIANS. 



over negroes and Ethiopians, over Arabs, and over a people 
whose single lock of hair on a shorn head proves that they 
were of a Tartar or Scythian race ; and the artists, not content, 
like Homer, with making the hero a head and shoulders taller 
than the soldiers that stand around him, usually paint the con- 
quering monarch as twenty times as tall as the pigmy enemy, 
whom he is destroying at a single blow. The hieroglyphics 
which were read to Germanicus by one of the priests in the 
reign of Tiberius, recounted the Egyptian victories over the 
Libyans and Ethiopians of Africa, the Medes, Persians, Bactri- 
ans, Scythians, Syrians, and Armenians of the East ; and the 
Cappadocians, Bithynians, and Lycians of Asia Minor ; together 
with the weight of gold and silver, and the other gifts, which 
these nations sent to Thebes as their yearly tribute. The 
march of Rameses through Palestine is not mentioned in the Old 
Testament ; but this may have arisen from his keeping close to 
the coast, a part of the country not then held by the Jews. 
The Hebrew nation was then in its infancy, ruled over by its 
judges, or, perhaps, at the time living in servitude under the 
Midianites or Canaanites. They had not yet gained possession 
of Jerusalem, their future capital, nor conquered the Philistines 
and Phoenicians of the coast; and probably, the march of this 
Egyptian army weakened the power of these enemies of the 
Jews, and helped the latter to the conquest of the land of Ca- 
naan. Rameses left monuments behind him in the countries 




RAMESES III 153 

which he conquered, and one of these still remains in Syria 
near Beyrout, side by side with a similar memorial of a Persian 
or Assyrian conqueror. On his return home from Thrace along 
the northern shores of the Black Sea, he left a colony of sol- 
diers on the Phasis at Colchis, an action w^hich Herodotus gives 
to Sesostris ; and Rameses 11. was succeeded by three kings of 
lesser note, after whom came Rameses III., who built the palace 
temple of Medeenet Habou, which we shall presently describe. 
He too was a great conqueror, as the sculptures abundantly 
testify. With him terminates the glory of this old race of 
Coptic kings. Under his successors Thebes gradually sunk ; 
its kings lost possession of Lower Egypt, and were even vassals 
of the distant kings of Bubastis and Tanis in the Delta. The 
power of Thebes ends in obscurity ; and history is unable to fix 
the date w^hen it ceased to be the capital of Egypt ; but w^e 
must suppose, that its fall and the want of records were caused 
and accompanied by civil war. 

During the past centuries of Theban greatness, the country 
was little known to either Jews or Greeks, the two people in 
whose writings we naturally hope to find information. In the 
Hebrew Scriptures Upper Egypt is scarcely mentioned; while 
by the Greeks it was only spoken of with ignorant wonder. 
In the Iliad, Thebes is called the richest city in the world, 
having a hundred gates, through each of which two hundred 
warriors issued in their war-chariots to battle and to victory. 
But it was to Homer wholly in the land of fable, far beyond 
the reach of knowledge ; it was called the birth-place of some 
of the Greek gods; and it was with the righteous Ethiopians, 
or people of the Thebaid, that Jupiter and his family were 
thought to be spending their twelve days' holydays, when the 
Greeks, fighting before the walls of Troy, thought their prayers 
were unheard. In the Odyssey we are told, that Neptune 
visited the same country, and dined with these Ethiopians, 
while the other gods were absent in Jupiter's palace on Mount 
Olympus ; but nothing is mentioned that shows that the poet 

20 



154 ' SHISHANK — BOCCHORIS. 

knew any thing of the places which he writes about. Hesioa 
I also, when speaking of Memnon, king of Ethiopia, by whom he 
j meant either Amunothph III. of the musical statue, or Miamun 
I Rameses II., calls him the son of the goddess Aurora. Every 
I thing in Egypt was seen by the Greeks enlarged through 
j the mists of distance, and colored by the poetic fancy of 
ignorance. 

As Thebes declined, Lower Egypt had been gradually in- 
creasing in power, and the first of its monarchs who sat on the 
throne of Rameses was Shishank of Bubastis, the Shishak of 
the Bible, and the cotemporary of Solomon, against whose son 
Rehoboam he marched with a large army, and brought to 
Thebes the golden shields with which Solomon had adorned 
the temple at Jerusalem. This exploit, as we shall see, is 
carved on the walls of Karnak. After various intestine con- 
vulsions, the Ethiopians, formerly tributaries of Thebes, now 
became its conquerors. The people had, indeed, been ruled 
by Copts, and their language and religion was the same as those 
of Thebes. Bocchoris the Wise, of Sais, long remembered for his 
mild and merciful laws, was put to death, and by Sabacothph, 
the Ethiopian, who reigned eight years in Egypt. Assyria was 
now become a powerful monarchy, and pressed Samaria and 
Judaea, who looked in vain for succor to Egypt. Tirhakah, 
the third of the Ethiopian kings, reigned in Egypt while Heze- 
kiah reigned in Judsea, Sennacherib in Assyria, and Mardoch 
Empadus in Babylon ; and here, with the recorded Babylonian 
eclipses, begins a fixed point in chronology, from which the 
dates o^ preceding events must be calculated. 

Under the last of the Ethiopian kings, who was succeeded by 
Egyptians, the seat of government was transferred to Sais in the 
Delta. Egypt was now no longer the same, the valor of the 
Coptic warriors was sunk, and Greek mercenaries were employed 
by Necho Hophra and the other monarchs of Lower Egypt. 
Henceforth, Thebes entirely lost its political importance, but it 
still retained all the original grandeur of its colossal monuments. 



INVASION OF CAMBYSES. 



155 



The reign of these kings of Lower Egypt was soon brought 
to a close by the invasion of Cambyses. After his conquest 
of Memphis, he advanced to the conquest of Ethiopia, but 
more Hke a madman than a general. On reaching Thebes he 
detached a body of 50,000 men to reduce first the great oasis, 
and next the oasis of Ammon. The first they reached, but no 
tidings were ever afterward heard of them, — they perished 
amid the sands of the Libyan desert. The Persian monarch 
had been compelled to turn back from his progress toward 
Ethiopia by famine, and on his reaching Thebes, he wreaked 
his disappointment upon the devoted city. He overthrew the 
massive walls of the temples, set fire to what would burn, 
hurled prostrate the statues of the great Coptic kings, broke 
open and plundered their tombs, and carried off an enormous 
booty. 

This was the first great blow received by Thebes, but she 
gradually arose to much of her original splendor, though her 
political importance was gone. The conquest of Egypt by the 
Ptolemies entirely withdrew the commerce which formerly cen- 
tered in the Thcbaid, by means of the routes across the desert 
to the Nile, to the more favored emporium of Alexandria. 

Loose and high-colored accounts of the wealth of Thebes 
had reached Greece even before the time of Homer ; and again 
through Herodotus and other travelers in the Delta ; . but 
nothing was certainly known of it till it was visited by Hecataeus 
of Abdera. Hecataeus had been an officer in the army of 
Alexander, and he afterward joined himself to Ptolemy ; but 
he is best known as an author. Among other works, he wrote 
a history of the Hyperborean or northern nations, and also a 
history, or rather a description, of Egypt, part of which we now 
read in the pages of Diodorus Siculus. He was perhaps the 
only mortal who, traveling to the most remote points both of 
the north and of the south, ever saw and compared the temple 
of the Sun in Thebes with the druidical temple of the same god 
at Stonehenge in Britain, before ruin had overthrown those 



156 VISIT OF HECAT^US. 

vast buildings. When he traveled in Upper Egypt, Thebes, 
though still a populous city, was more thought of by the anti- 
quary than by the statesman. Its wealth, however, was still 
great ; and when, under the just government of Ptolemy, it 
was no longer necessary for the priests to hide their treasures, 
it was found that the temples still held the very large sum of 
three hundred talents of gold and two thousand three hundred 
talents of silver, or above one million sterling, which had 
escaped the plundering hands of the Persian satraps. 

The Memnonium, the great palace of Rameses II., was then 
standing ; and though it had been plundered by the Persians, 
the building itself was unhurt. Its massive walls had scarcely 
felt the wear of the centuries which had rolled over them. 
Hecataeus measured its rooms, its court-yards, and its avenue 
of sphynxes ; and by his measurements we can now distinguish 
its ruins from those of the other palaces of Thebes. One of 
its rooms, perhaps after the days of its builder, had been fitted 
up for a library, and held the histories and records of the 
priests ; but the golden zodiac or circle, on which were en- 
graved the days of the year, with the stars which were seen to 
rise at sunrise and set at sunset, by which each day was 
known, had been taken away by Cambyses. Hecataeus also 
saw the three other palace-temples of Thebes, which we now 
call by the names of the villages in which they stand, namely, 
of Luxor, of Karnak, and of Medeenet Habou. 

The Theban priests showed Hecataeus the large wooden 
mummy-cases of their predecessors, standing upright round the 
walls of the temple, to the number of three hundred and forty- 
five ; and, when the Greek traveler boasted that he was the 
sixteenth in descent from Jupiter, they told him that those three 
hundred and forty-five priests had ruled Thebes in succession 
from father and son, each a mortal the son of a mortal, and 
that it was that number of generations since the gods Osiris and 
Horus had reigned in Egypt. Nations, like families, have 
usually been fond of claiming to be descended from a long line 



THE PTOLEMIES. 157 

of ancestors, but none have ever had a better right to that boast 
than the Egyptians. The Theban priest was speaking to Heca- 
taeus in about the fortieth reign of this history, while his Greek 
visitor only pretended to be the sixteenth in descent from the 
gods. The Theban could then name with certainty more 
sovereigns of his country in the order of succession than we 
can kings of England. He was as far removed from the ob- 
scurity of antiquity as we English are in the nineteenth century. 
It is true that he boasted that the oldest of his mummies was 
ten times older than it is likely to have been ; but if he had 
confined himself to what we think the truth, his boast would 
still have been very remarkable, and he could probably have 
pointed to records standing around him which had existed some 
centuries before the time of Abraham. 

The Ptolemies added to the magnificence of Thebes as well 
as of all parts of Egypt. They made various additions to 
the temples, and the most magnificent Pylon or gateway at 
Karnak owes its origin to Ptolemy. We may notice here that 
architecture was somewhat modified by Greek taste — the 
columns of the temple being more elongated and elegant, the 
capitals more varied, and the general effect lighter and more 
graceful. Sculpture had greatly degenerated. The reign of 
Ptolemy Lathyrus is remarkable for the rebellion of Thebes, and 
for the final consummation of her ruin. It had long been falling 
in trade and wealth, and had lost its superiority in arms ; but its 
temples, like so many citadels, its obelisks, its colossal statues, 
and the tombs of its great kings, yet remained, and with them 
the memory of its bygone glory. The Thebans had borne for 
two centuries and a half, under their Greek masters, political 
servitude, heavy taxes, habitual arrogance, and occasional 
cruelty. Under the government of Cleopatra Cocce the measure 
of their injuries overflowed, and taking advantage of the 
revolutions in Alexandria, a large part of Upper Egypt rose in 
rebellion. When Lathyrus returned to Egypt, Thebes re- 
fused her obedience. For three years the brave Copts, in- 



158 



FINAL RUIN OF THEBES. 



trenched within their temples, every one of which was a castle, 
withstood his armies ; but the bows, the hatchets, and the 
chariots could do little against Greek arms ; while the over- 
throw of the massive temple walls and the utter ruin of the 
city prove how slowly they yielded to greater skill and numbers, 
and mark the conqueror's distrust, lest the temples should again 
be so made use of. Perhaps the only time before Thebes had 
been stormed after a long siege, was when it first fell under the 
Persians, and the ruin which marked the footsteps of Cambyses 
had never been wholly repaired. But the wanton cruelty of 
the foreigners did little mischief when compared with the 
unpitying and unforgivmg distrust of the native conquerors. 
The temples of Tentyra, Apollinopolis, Latopolis, and Philae 
show that the massive Egyptian buildings can, w^hen let alone, 
withstand the wear of time for thousands of years ; but the harder 
hand of man works much faster, and the wide acres of Theban 
ruins prove alike the greatness of the city and the force with 
which it was overthrown : and this is the last time the Egyptian 
Thebes is met w ith in the pages of history. The habitations of 
the city were swept away, but the temples, miles apart, form 
the nuclei of different scattered hamlets, whose inhabitants till 
the plain, once covered with the living millions of the ancient 
city. The Christians under the Greek emperors raised their 
puny structures amid the colossal courts of Medeenet 
Habou, but fled on the conquest of the Arabs, whose de- 
generate successors make their habitation amid the tombs of 
Gornou, and gain a precarious subsistence by rifling their con- 
tents, or dragging from their repositories the mummied remains 
of their tenants. 

But the ruined temples still stand to call forth the wonder of 
the traveler. They have seen the whole portion of time of 
which history keeps the reckoning roll before them ; they have 
seen kingdoms and nations rise and fall — the Babylonians, the 
Jews, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. They have 
seen the childhood of all that we call ancient, and thev still 



WORE OF SIR GARDNER WILKINSOX 159 

seem likely to stand, to tell their tale to those who will here- 
after call us the ancients. 

It is well to remind the reader that my promise was but to 
" glance" at Thebes, to give a general impression of the site, 
and a few views of the most remarkable monuments, in fact, 
rather to excite than satisfy an interest in the subject. To 
describe the buildings in detail would be an endless task ; such 
descriptions, besides, would be equally uninteresting and unin- 
telligible without a far more numerous collection of views than 
can be given here ; and still the tombs, perhaps the most won- 
derful objects, and the most interesting in a historical and anti- 
quarian point of view, must ever remain without adequate illus- 
tration. In fact, nothing but a most elaborate series of copies of 
the sculptures and paintings they contain, which would alone fill 
volumes, could give to the reader any idea of them ; and to 
describe them in detail would be no less than to describe the 
religion, manners, and customs of ancient Egypt. The results 
of long and persevering study of these authentic memorials of 
the past, assisted by learning and genius, may be seen in the 
work of Sir Gardner Wilkinson on this subject ; there a vast 
number of details, which the traveler sees but in succession, 
without any clew to their connection, have been reduced to 
order, and illustrated by comparison with history, which in its 
turn has received a new light ; and thus, in these invaluable 
volumes, all the splendor of ancient Egypt and of Thebes is 
brought up most vividly before us, — the pride, pomp, and cir- 
cumstance of the old warrior kings, the splendid ceremonial of 
the worship that once filled these vacant temples, and the luxury 
of the private dwellings, of which not a trace now remains. 
Through his erudite researches, the strange gods and goddesses 
of the Egyptian mythology, which everywhere meet our gaze on 
the walls of these temples, are no longer regarded merely as ob- 
jects of the idolatry of the vulgar, but assume a symbolical mean- 
ing, as embodied attributes of the universal cause ; as they did 



160 PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY. 

at least to the minds of that learned priesthood, with whom the 
secrets of science, as well as of religion, were deposited. Such is 
the best description of Thebes, one which deduces its past mag- 
nificence from the existing wonders of its tombs and temples. 
Mine is but the humble effort of a tourist, to walk over the field 
which the learning and research of others has rendered so 
fruitful, and give a few impressions, and those necessarily 
imperfect ones, of its actual appearance to the eye. 

It may be as well here to explain, what it is that has enabled 
the student of Egyptian antiquities to make such surprising 
progress within the course of the last quarter of a century. 
The sculptures and paintings on the monument were of course 
equally palpable before that time ; but the key to their explana- 
tion, that is, the power of deciphering the hieroglyphic inscrip- 
tions, everywhere accompanying them, was wanting. The 
first impulse to the study was given by the expedition of Na- 
poleon, and the publications of the French savans, w^hich 
awakened the attention of the learned, and many shrewd, and 
many absurd guesses were made as to the import of these mys- 
terious signs. By little and little, a nearer approximation was 
made to the truth, the discovery of which was mainly owing to 
the finding of the Rosetta stone, now in the British Museum. 
This fragment, as most of our readers are aware, contains a 
broken trilinguar inscription, in hieroglyphic or figurative — De- 
motic or written character, and ordinary Greek characters. The 
Greek inscription being proved to be a translation, attention 
was next directed with intense earnestness to the second or 
Demotic one. The first discovery was of the groups of signs 
denoting proper names, such as Ptolemy, Alexander, &c., and 
that these signs were also letters. The corresponding symbols 
in the first or hieroglyphic inscription were now the next 
objects of attention ; and Dr. Young, in 1819, at length made 
known his identification of the names of " Ptolemy" and 
"Berenice," and of the nature of several of the symbolic letters, 
thus giving the first clew to subsequent discovery. But it was 



r 

j THE ROSETTA STONE. 161 

not till 1822 that the discovery was pushed further byChampol- 
j lion le Jeune, who read at Paris a memoir demonstrating that 
I "the ancient Egyptians had made use of pure hieroglyphic 
' signs, that is, of characters representing the image of material 
I objects, to represent simply the sounds of the names of Greek 
I and Roman sovereigns, inscribed upon the monuments," which 
method he inferred to have been also adopted at the most early 
period. In 1824, he pubHshed his " Statement of the Hiero- 
glyphic System of the Ancient Egyptians," in which he 
showed that, even in the most ancient times, the greater portion 
of these signs or figures of material objects were phonetic — re- 
ducible into a regular alphabet; and that the hieroglyphic 
mode of writing is complex, being at once figurative, i. e. de- 
scriptive by representations of objects discussed, symbolical, 
and phonetic, or descriptive by signs intended to represent 
sounds. 

Furnished with the key to their long-hidden mysteries, sev- 
eral Egyptian travelers undertook the examination of the 
monuments of Egypt. The French government sent out 
Champollion, and the Tuscan, Rosellini, who agreed to labor 
in concert. They pursued their explorations as far as Nubia, 
and it was agreed that they should publish together the results 
of their journey. Champollion, however, died before his por- 
tion was concluded, and left to his colleague the task of intro- 
ducing their labors to the world, which has since been done in 
a magnificent pubhcation. Meanwhile the English antiquaries 
had not been idle ; Sir Gardner Wilkinson having issued the 
work to which we have already alluded, and Messrs. Burton and 
Birch have also labored in the field of palaeography. Prussia 
also sent out the young but erudite Lepsius, to prosecute still 
further researches, the full results of which have not yet been 
brought before the public. So mighty have been the conse- 
quences from the discovery of one single fragment of stone ! 

The annexed map (from an original survey by a friend) will 
serve to explain the details that follow. It will be there seen, 

21 



162 THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS. 

that the most colossal of all the ruins, that of Karnak, is on the 
eastern bank, together with Luxor ; yet though the ruins on 
the western bank are inferior in scale, this deficiency is more 
than made up in interest by the tombs, and the general im- 
pressiveness of the scene of desolation around them. The 
goddess Athor, the Venus of the Egyptians, whose magnificent 
temple at Dendera we have so lately noticed, presided over the 
western quarter of Thebes, and from her this suburb derived its 
name of Pathyris, belonging to Athor. She was figuratively 
represented in the paintings as a spotted cow, living behind the 
western mountain of Thebes, from which, figured in this shape, 
she is seen rising as the planet Venus. It was into her arms that 
the sun, as he sunk behind the mountain, was poetically supposed 
to be received, and in this character answered also to Night.* 

I arranged to visit the tombs of the kings the following day, 
and spent the evening in riding about the environs of the 
landing. The first object of interest that meets the eye, is 
the small temple of old Koorneh, of the time of Rameses II., 
of which I have presented no illustration, as, though interest- 
ing to the antiquary, it is not among the most remarkable or 
colossal of the monuments of Thebes. 

The craggy range of the western mountains which overhang 
the desolate city were ruddy with the reflected hues of a glori- 
ous dawn ; but the river and plain were still cool and shadowy, 
when I stepped from our boat on shore, and found our guide 
and donkeys waiting for us under the old sycamore. We 
mounted, and hastened forward at a gallop; but, leaving the 
green border of the Nile, were soon brought up by some yawn- 
ing mummy-holes and obscure pits, often of great depth, with 
which the whole plain is covered, and picked our way through 
this intricate and dreary chaos of sepulchral excavations with 
greater caution. At length we had passed them, and entered 
upon a valley running up into the heart of the mountains, quite 
in the rear of Thebes, and remote from any connection with its 

* Wilkinson. 



r-* 



fmfU'^ 



',.^' 






;fr 




n'l'i 



, !i 



P 



BELZONI TOMB. 163 

site. The farther we penetrated into this dreary ravine, the 
more desolate became its features ; arid rocks, whitening in 
the sun, overhung its narrow, sandy bed ; there was no ves- 
tige of vegetable life ; and through these barren and melan- 
choly portals we seemed to be penetrating to the very grave of 
nature. After tracking the defile for half an hour, the bed of 
the ravine, which had gradually narrowed, divided into several 
obscure cliffs, which penetrated into the bowels of the sand- 
stone mountain, and a range of gloomy, perpendicular precipices 
forbade all further progress. At the foot of this melancholy 
barrier, we descried a few dark apertures, like entrances to 
subterranean caverns, singularly gloomy and mysterious in 
effect ; in the rocky walls of the lateral fissures we gradually 
made out others, and these were entrances of those wonderful 
tombs which the kings of mighty Thebes made for themselves 
in " desolate places," many of which still remain hidden from 
research among the deep chasms of this funereal region. 

The sandy valley, with the reflection from the arid cliffs, began 
to grow glaring and oppressive as we stood at the head of the 
flight of steps which descends steeply into the principal tomb. 
It is not without awe that we penetrate by this ruined staircase 
into the abode of death, the shadows fall deeper as we descend, 
and the faint blue light from above just enables us to make 
out the sculptures on the dusky walls which line the passage — 
hieroglyphics relating to the owner of the tomb, and figures 
emblematical of the passage into the realms of futurity. Here 
the guides lighted their candles, and we advanced into the first 
and most celebrated " Hall of Beauty." At the foot of this 
passage was formerly a wall, and on the other side the masonry 
built up to conceal the entrance to the wonders within ; but 
Belzoni, suspecting from different indications that more was be- 
yond, forced in the wall with the trunk of a palm, and burst 
into the splendid chambers so artfully concealed. His emotions 
may well be envied, as he first viewed the many figures, in all 
the freshness of yesterday's coloring, with which the walls of 



164 HALL OF BEAUTY. 

this apartment are everywhere covered. Its scale indeed, after 
the vague language of some writers, may a little disappoint 
the traveler, who has perhaps looked for a boundless "hall 
of Eblis" in the interior of these sepulchers; but nothing 
can be more wonderful than to see, as the light of the torch 
is applied successively to the dusky walls, group after group, 
of the most elaborate execution and vivid coloring, start suc- 
cessively into life, most of which are yet full of mysteries, even 
to those who have pored half a life over their hidden mythologi- 
cal import. This hall is supported by four square columns, on 
which Osirei, father of Rameses IL, is represented in presence 
of different divinities, the roof is covered with golden stars, 
and the walls represent processions of a very singular character, 
some personages bearing on their shoulders the folds of an 
enormous serpent ; but the most remarkable consists of four 
different groups, each consisting of four persons, of different 
features and complexions, alternately red, white, black, and 
white again, which to Wilkinson assume a peculiar significa- 
tion : the red being intended to express the Egyptians ; the 
next, a bearded northern people, with whom they were often at 
war, to testify the north ; as do the blacks, the regions of the 
south ; and the other white people in costume the oriental 
nations. 

An adjacent chamber, the paintings of which are unfinished, 
supported by two pillars, affords an opportunity of seeing the 
figures sketched on, before wrought out by the labor of the 
chisel, and elaborately painted : these outlines are very bold and 
masterly. We now proceed deeper into the recesses of the sep- 
ulcher, the chambers of which are not in a line, as is usually the 
case ; a staircase at the nearest end of the inner wall conducts 
to two passages, and another chamber, into the great hall, which | 
is rather larger than the one first entered, and having six pillars 
instead of four, with two lateral apartments, and at the extremity 
an oblong, covered saloon, in the midst of which, on the summit 
of an inclined plane and staircases, extending deep into the 



L 



DOCTRINE OF THE JUDGMENT. 



165 



rock, and part of which is filled up with fallen earth, stood, 
when Belzoni entered, the celebrated sarcophagus, which held 
the body of the monarch, now in the museum of Sir J. Soane. 
Connected with this hall are other small chambers, in one of 
which are sculptures which startle the uninitiated, appearing 
to some to cast the reproach of human sacrifice upon the Egyp- 
tian religion, though these are believed by antiquaries to have 
an emblematic signification, as have most of the other sculptures, 
relating to the future passage of the soul through different stages 
of existence. 

The entire extent of this astonishing succession of chambers 
and passages is hollowed to a length of 320 feet into the heart 
of the rock, and they are everywhere covered with the same 
subjects, a large proportion of which are of mythological sig- 
nification, only to be unfolded, if ever, by the long and per- 
severing scrutiny of the scholar. To the ordinary visitor they 
are sealed records ; he gazes with vacant wonder on the com- 
binations of strange sculpture that mock him from the walls, the 
abstruse symbols of a religion whose deeper mysteries elude re- 
search. Yet, without entering too deeply into this subject, it may 
be remarked, that the doctrine of the judgment and the future 
life is plainly depicted on the Egyptian monuments, as will be 




^^ 



166 FUNERAL OF THE MONARCH. 

seen from the annexed copy of a portion of the sarcophagus 
taken from this tomb, wherein Osiris is represented as sitting 
on his throne, weighing the actions of the departed, an un- 
happy soul, who for his sins has passed into the body of a pig, 
being carried away in a boat. 

In other sculptures, as well as in the papyrus " Book of the 
Dead" in the Turin Museum, the doctrine is more fully 
elaborated. The soul was supposed to be dormant until the 
mummification of the body was completed, when, after various 
adventures, it ascended to the hall of Osiris, appearing on its 
way before the forty-two assessors, each challenging it to prove 
its innocence of a particular sin, in which, if it is successful, it 
receives its due award, and passes into the regions of the blest, 
In the great serpent, to which allusion has already been made, 
and which is also found represented on this sarcophagus as over- 
come, and conquered, and borne on the shoulders of men, we 
see perhaps some remote analogy with the doctrine of the book 
of Genesis. 

The formation of costly tombs was encouraged by the priest- 
hood, who derived thence additional influence, and many 
years would sometimes be consumed in the elaborate decora- 
tion of his future abode, by its wealthy proprietor. Nothing 
could exceed the magnificence of the funeral obsequies of 
a virtuous monarch. A general mourning for seventy-two 
days and a solemn fast was proclaimed, and numerous pro- 
cessions of mourners through the streets extolled the virtues of 
the deceased. Some idea of the splendor of the funeral pro- 
cession of a king may be formed from various representations of 
those of wealthy individuals. The most beautiful feature was 
the passage of the sacred lake. After a long procession of 
servants, and mourners, and priests bearing offerings, shrines, 
flowers, &c., and of wailing women beating their breasts, and 
who, like those described in Scripture, cast dust upon their 
heads, came the sarcophagus bearing the corpse. On reaching 
the lake, the sarcophagus was transferred to the consecrated 



THE HARPER'S TOMB. 167 

boat — of elegant and graceful form, and others scarcely less 
splendid conveyed the rest of the mourners to the opposite 
shore, forming, as depicted in the tombs, a most magnificent 
spectacle. Here the procession was again formed to convey the 
body to the tomb, on reaching which the sarcophagus was 
placed erect in the chamber, while a priest performed a sacrifice, 
and the nearest relatives, with loud wailings, extolled the 
virtues of the deceased, which were repeated by the rest of the 
mourners. 

We read in Scripture that the wicked kings of Israel were not 
allowed to be '• gathered to the sepulchers of their fathers" with 
honor. Such was also the case with certain of the Egyptian 
kings. When, after the embalming of the body and a variety of 
ceremonies, the coffin was brought to the brink of the sacred 
lake, to be ferried over to his tomb, a sort of preliminary trial 
of the deceased took place, who might be deprived of an hon- 
orable funeral, and of admission to the consecrated sepulchers, 
by public and unanswerable testimony to his crimes. 

As we emerge from these dark halls, scarcely illuminated by 
candles or the fires of straw and brush, which the reckless 
traveler lights in their recesses, what a contrast is there to the 
blinding day above — the burning sand and rock of the desolate 
valley, more sad than the sepulchers hollowed in its rocky 
sides. I was glad to escape from it again into the neighboring 
tomb, called after the celebrated Bruce, whose description of a 
harper upon its walls occasioned so much ridicule and reproach. 
This is not so irregular as the one described, nor are the 
chambers so numerous or intricate, but it pierces 405 feet on 
a more gradual slope into the mountain-side. The sculptures 
are more intelligible and interesting to the unlearned visitor, for 
they exhibit domestic and culinary usages — different boats, 
arms and armor, furniture of all descriptions ; agricultural 
scenes, birds, fruits, and other natural productions ; with 
a clearness and minuteness equally amusing and startling ; for 
these familiar representations are not less than 2000 years old, 



168 CONCEALED TOMBS. 

and bear testimony, no less than other more marvelous sculp- 
tures and monuments, to the high state of civilization existing at 
that time among the ancient Egyptians ; even on a cursory 
glance, they enable us to build up in idea the perished palaces 
of Thebes, and to furnish them with all the appHances and 
means which elegance and luxury, guided by taste, could sug- 
gest or create, to fill their halls with the sound of music and 
revelry. 

Another of the most remarkable of the tombs, is that which 
appears on the right hand of the annexed view ; the descent is 
more gradual than in the others, and of course more elegant ; 
but it does not produce that impression of wonder and mys- 
tery occasioned by the tomb of Belzoni. We learn, from various 
inscriptions, that it was much admired by Greek and Roman 
visitors. Beside these, there are numerous others open ; and 
in the western branch of the ravine, that of Amunothph III., of 
the vocal statue, the oldest king whose tomb has yet been dis- 
covered ; and it is here that Wilkinson supposes the most 
ancient sepulchers yet remain to be discovered. 

" When Hecataeus," says Mr. Sharpe, " visited Egypt in the 
reign of Ptolemy, many of these tombs had even then been 
opened to gratify the curiosity of the learned or the greediness 
of the conqueror. Forty-seven royal tombs were mentioned 
in •'the records of the priests, of which the entrances had 
been covered up with earth and hidden in the sloping sides of 
the hills, in the hope that they might remain undisturbed and 
unplundered, and might keep safe the embalmed bodies of 
the kings till they should arise again at the end of the world ; 
and seventeen of these had already been found and broken 
open. Hecataeus was told, that the other tombs had been before 
destroyed ; and we owe it, perhaps, to this mistake, that they 
remained unopened for more than two thousand years longer, 
to reward the researches of modern travelers, and to unfold to 
us the history of their builders." 

The sun was getting high when we prepared to leave this 



f I 



i§:M 




PLAIN OF THEBES. 169 

valley of death, which gathering and reflecting his fiery rays, is, 
at noon, all but insupportable. A steep pathway, up which we 
toiled with difficulty on foot, gradually brought us toward the 
summit of the mountain, and we looked down into the chasms 
sunk below, in the very depth of which are descried, here and 
there, the narrow, dark mouths of the sepulchers, while others, 
undisturbed, are hidden in unseen recesses. Arriving at the 
crest of the passage, a light breeze from the Nile fanned 
our aching brows and somewhat relieved the oppressive sultri- 
ness, and the eye caught suddenly on the broad and noble river 
rolling afar like molten and glittering silver. A few steps more 
brought us to the very edge of the precipice, and the site of 
the '-world's great mistress on the Egyptian plain" lay out- 
stretched before us under the noontide heat. 

It is, indeed, marked by nature for a great capital ; — a 
grand valley many miles in width, divided by the Nile — de- 
fended on the west by the craggy range of mountains we 
stood upon, and on the east by the far distant hills on the 
Arabian side ; — a mighty area, strewn for miles with the 
scattered remains of former magnificence, which, colossal as 
they prove to be on a nearer approach, from hence appear but 
specks upon the lifeless, desolate expanse. 

I have now exhibited in the drawings the entire extent of the 
view, the Assaseef and its region of tombs lying too far to the 
west to be well included. The noble river, though the city 
through which it flowed has passed away, still maintains its 
fertilizing influence ; its annual deposit, like its bed, has risen 
higher, and the ground probably once occupied by buildings 
in the center of the view is all cultivable up to the edge of the 
sand at the foot of the Libyan mountains. The bold oflf-shoots of 
the arid sandstone mountain which occupy the fore and middle 
ground are pierced with innumerable sepulchers, running deep 
into the heart of the rock, the greater part of which face the 
south ; the valleys between are equally the abodes of death, 
mummy-pits, long opened and rifled, everywhere honeycomb 

22 



170 



PLAIN OF THEBES, 



the sandy soil ; millions lay buried under the heaving mounds 
and the deep holes through which intricate and dangerous 
pathways run from ruin to ruin. On the verge of this region, 
among the burning sands, stand conspicuous on the left the 
ruins of the Memnoniijm, one of the most extensive and elegant 
of the temples, but hence appearing an indistinct mass of 
columns and propylsea. To the left, following the edge of the 
cultivated soil, lies the path to the Assaseef, and some portions 
of the tombs of which appear. On the left are seen the temple 
and village of Gornou, not included in the view. 

To the right, the path from the Memnonium conducts to the 
extensive mounds and ruins of Medeenet Habou, a world in 
itself; and behind is the gloomy Birket Habou, or lake of 
Habou, formerly dedicated to funeral ceremonies, and now seen 
surrounded by sandy mounds. In this direction, the city on this 
side, called the Libyan suburb, probably terminated. Conspicu- 
ous in the center of the view, on the cultivated ground be- 
tween the Memnonium and Medeenet Habou, stands, in lonely, 
isolated grandeur, the colossal statue of the Vocal Memnon 
and its more distant fellow ; the earth has risen about their base 
and covered the fallen fragments of that avenue of sphynxes 
and buildings with which they stood connected. Beyond these, 
on the other side of the broad solitary river, appears, at a prom- 
inent point, the village and temple of Luxor ; and to the left 
of this, at the distance of more than a mile, are the groups of 
propylaea, w^alls, and columns of Karnak, whose wonderful ex- 
tent and colossal character are reduced by distance to a confused, 
undistinguishable mass. It was around and far beyond this 
central ruin, the heart of old Thebes, the perished city ex- 
tended eastward toward the Arabian mountains. 

Let us go back for a moment to the period of its highest 
magnificence. The vacant plain w^as then covered by the 
crowded streets of the capital, and from the spot where we 
stood, instead of the death-like silence which broods over it, 
we should have heard the hum of its immense population. 



A GLANCE AT ANCIENT THEBES. 171 

The streets, we find, were for the most part very narrow and 
impervious to the sun, but some were wider, and along these 
we may see rolling the light chariots of the wealthy, accom- 
panied by their crowds of servants, and all the varied costumes 
of the different castes of society, — the pale, intellectual priest, the 
bronzed veteran of the eastern campaigns, the tradesman, the 
husbandman, and the boatman. The houses in these main 
thoroughfares, we learn from Wilkinson, were stately and 
elegantly furnished, several stories high, and ornamented with 
portals, which, like those of the modern Arabs in Cairo, bore 
some religious inscriptions. From their interior courts, we 
should have admired, too, the groups of palm-trees arising, 
covered with clouds of doves, and the flat roofs, each with its 
small turret, and machine for ventilation. From temple to 
temple, each with its massive entrance propylsea, probably the 
" hundred gates" alluded to by Homer, and its courts sur- 
rounded by defensive walls covered with historical sculptures, 
extended avenues of sphynxes, and along these we might 
picture to ourselves religious processions advancing in all their 
pomp, or the solemn celebration of the return of one of the 
warrior kings from some distant and successful enterprise. 

The river, too, along which slowly moves at intervals a single 
bark, was then gay with a variety of vessels, from the splendid 
barge of the monarch to the humble ferry-boats, which plied 
incessantly from the great avenues of Karnak and Luxor across 
to the western suburb, and disgorged the crowds who poured 
along the dromos, or ' royal street/ which formerly connected 
the latter temple with the great colossi, which now stands, 
solitary, amid the graves of the countless thousands it has 
outlived. 

We must not forget the funeral ceremonies, already alluded 
to, so important a feature in the manners of the ancient Egyp- 
tians. Over the distant lake of Birket Habou, on the right 
of the view, might have been seen from time to time pro- 
cessions of boats, bearing the bodies of the dead, the mummy 



172 MEDEENET HABOU. 

deposited in a shrine, placed upon the sledge, upon which it was 
afterward drawn, amid the wailing of their kindred, to their 
tombs in the region of ' Amenti,' or the west, on which side of 
the Nile the cemeteries are usually placed. We may almost 
hear the clink of the workman's hammer as he fashioned the 
everlasting habitations of the dead, and we may fancy whole 
legions of painters and sculptors at work in ornamenting their 
dim recesses, with those vivid representations of every-day life, 
which subsisted here unchanged for ages. 

With this view of the site of Thebes, map-like in detail and 
mournfully grand in its general impression, we proceed to 
examine the different monuments, or rather, fields of ruin, 
which are scattered about the plain. The steep pathway 
gradually descends from this commanding elevation, along the 
brink of sandstone precipices, beneath which is concealed the 
elegant little temple of Dayr el Medeeneh, well worthy of a 
separate visit, and at length brings us down to the walls and 
mounds of Medeenet Habou. 

This immense group of buildings is so mixed up with a 
mass of later erections that it is difficult to realize its ori- 
ginal effect. The principal edifice is the colossal temple and 
palace of Rameses III., but adjacent on the south, and on a 
different plane, is another, and smaller one, to which large courts 
have been added by the Ptolemaic kings. The pavilion of 
Rameses is very singular and unique in point of architecture, 
while its decorative sculptures are very curious. It appears 
(though from the point of view not fully) in the accompanying 
illustration, which also includes the later Ptolemaic courts and 
facjade to the smaller temple above mentioned. Two lodges 
flanked the entrance to the palace ; on either hand is a pyramidal 
building resembling a tower, on the external facades of which 
are sculptures representing the Egyptian conqueror in the act 
of smiting a vanquished foe, in presence of the god Amunre. 
The passage between these towers goes under the northern or 
inner part of the building, consisting of different apartments, 



COURT OF MEDEENET HABOU. 173 

which, with others now ruined, formed the pavilion of the king. 
The rooms are surprisingly small, but exceedingly niteresting, 
for on the walls are sculptures illustrative of the private life of 
an Egyptian monarch, who is seated among the favorites of 
his harem, all standing after the oriental fashion ; some fan 
hnn, and others present him with flowers. These once royal 
apartments were occupied when we passed by a number of 
Fellahs from some distant village, with their camels, whose 
squalor and misery contrasted strangely with these vestiges of 
oriental voluptuousness. The exterior architecture of these 
pavilions is very curious, half-castellated in character, orna- 
mented with pointed shields somewhat resembling the Saracen 
battlements of later times. The passage under the building 
continued in a line to the great temple, which is entered be- 
tween two lofty propylaea adorned with sculptures of similar 
import to those on the pavilion. This gives access to the first 
great court, lined on either side with columns, half-buried in 
rubbish, and terminated with another tower, between which we 
pass into a second and very splendid area. Some idea of its 
style may be formed from what remains of it ; but the effect 
of the court has been much defaced by the destruction of the 
figures formerly attached to the square Osiride columns and 
other portions, as well as by the puny erections of Christian 
date, which stand in curious contrast to the decayed grandeur 
of the original building. A beautiful corridor of circular 
columns runs within the north side : on these the painting 
is much preserved, and assists us in forming some idea 
of the entire effect of the original design, which is justly 
regarded as very elegant, though the scale, after all, is not 
of that vastness which seems necessary to give an impressive 
effect to Egyptian architecture. The sculptures on the walls 
of the court (minutely described by Wilkinson) carry us back 
to the palmy days of their monarchy, and have proved a mine 
to the antiquary. There Rameses, borne in royal state, with 
his children, officers, and priests, officiates before the statues of 



174 HISTORICAL SCULPTURES. 

the gods of Thebes ; every detail of their splendid religious cere- 
monies seems elaborately depicted ; while on the other wall he 
is represented as battling and triumphing. Seated proudly in his 
car, he receives the unhappy captives, whose arms are painfully 
bound behind them ; scribes enumerate the hands of the slain, 
and even more disgusting memorials of the barbarity of oriental 
warfare, which are heaped up before him ; and the history of 
these exploits, supposed to record victories over their Asiatic 
enemies, appears in the accompanying hieroglyphic tablets. 

Passing to the outside of the temple, the same scenes are ex- 
hibited in great variety and detail ; and the sculptor, availing 
himself of the extensive flat surface afforded by the external 
walls, has given a sort of panorama of all the incidents of a cam- 
paign with some oriental enemy, covering the entire space, in 
curious adaptation, or rather defiance of perspective, with all the 
pell-mell and confusion of attack, defense, retreat — both by land 
and sea, in a style which, if not classically or anatomically 
correct, and often grotesque, is wonderfully truth-telling and 
spirited in the main ; the storm of battle seems to roll along 
with all its savage incidents, in the invention of which, the 
sculptor has displayed an inexhaustible variety as well as histor- 
ical minuteness. Everywhere the Egyptians triumph ; the per- 
sonal prowess of the monarch, who is always represented on a 
gigantic scale, is conspicuously exhibited — terrible, and even 
cruel to his enemies, he is no less pious to his protecting gods ; 
he transfixes the lions who attack his car with the same intrepidity 
and success with which he drives upon the opposing hosts, — in 
short, he is the very ideal of an old Homeric warrior and king. 
"I have only instanced the principal objects of interest at Me- 
deenet Habou, and those very briefly. Pass we now from this 
great and confused assemblage of buildings, along the edge of 
the cultivated land toward the ruins of the Memnonium. This 
track displays on all sides vestiges of former buildings, tombs 
on the sandy slopes and hills, and remains of statues and tem- 
ples in the marsh below, connected with the colossal statues of 



COLOSSAL STATUE. 175 

Memnon, and other edifices, the site of which is obscure. 
The ruins of the Memnonium, or palace and temple of Rameses 
II., rise grandly upon the eye, far surpassing in effect those of 
Medeenet Habou. The immense propylon, covered with sculp- 
ture, which formed the entrance to the first court, the walls of 
which are destroyed ; the second wall of this court, with the 
picturesque Osiride columns attached to it, with the fragments of 
the colossal statue at their foot, form so noble and characteristic 
a specimen of Egyptian architecture in ruin, that I could not 
resist the temptation of transferring it to my sketch-book. Per- 
haps the drawing may convey to the mind of the reader some 
measure of that wonder with which I regarded the prostrate 
fragments of that statue of Syenite granite, than which nothing 
in Thebes so well justifies the expression of Belzoni, that you 
appear to be wandering here among a city of giants. The por- 
tion seen in perspective in the drawing is merely the head, 
chest, and upper part of the figure, broken in the middle ; it is 
22 feet 4 inches across the shoulders, and 14 feet 4 inches from 
the neck to the elbow. " To say that this is the largest statue 
in Egypt will convey no idea of the gigantic size or enormous 
Aveight of a mass, which, from an approximate calculation, ex- 
ceeded,* when entire, nearly three times the solid contents of the 
great obelisk at Karnak, and weighed about 887 tuns, 51 hun- 
dred-weight." On the wall of the propylon in the back-ground 
is seen Rameses 11. in his chariot driving upon a host of fugi- 
tive enemies during one of his Asiatic campaigns. 

The Memnonium, though not the most colossal, is, perhaps, 
the most chaste and elegant specimen of Egyptian architecture, 
at its period of characteristic perfection, before its proportions 
were altered by the infusion of Grecian taste. It was, orig- 
inally, a vast and sumptuous structure, the effect of which, 
even in its present fragmentary state, it is not difficult to 
imagine. Its lofty propylaea, or gateway towers, covered with 
historical sculptures, gave access to the first open court, in 
which stood the colossal statue, the fragments of which we have 



176 



THE MEMNONIUM. 




just described. Through this there was a passage into the 
second court, having, on two sides, the rows of the Osiride 
columns, and the two remaining ones of circular columns, part 
of which corridor is seen in the annexed view. The entire 
effect of this second court must have been imposing in the 
extreme. Three flights of steps led up from its open area into 
the northern corridor of Osiride pillars ; on each side of the 
center one was a black granite statue of Rameses 11. With his 
spirit awed by this display of magnificence, the spectator next 
advanced from this corridor into the Grand Hall, the azure 




roof of which rose above his head, studded with golden stars, and 
was supported upon a central colonnade of twelve massive yet 



HALL OF MEMNONIUM. 177 

elegant columns. It will be seen that the architecture is imita- 
tive of the vegetable life of the country, the capital being copied 
from the graceful bell-shaped flower of the papyrus. The 
adornments also are designed from the stalks and flowers of 
different plants, painted in blue and green, and they are often 
exquisitely beautiful. The more chaste and classical buildings 
of the Ramessean period, as in the present instance, have their 
ranges of columns and capitals uniform, while, as will be seen 
in the drawing of Edfou, those of the Ptolemaic period are 
studiously different, all of them too being combinations of 
vegetable forms, which, varied and graceful as they are, yet 
by that very variety detract, in a symmetrical architecture like 
that of the Egyptian temple, from simplicity of general effect. 

When we consider the grave, yet elegant simplicity of its 
architecture, the gorgeous decorations consisting of divine 
figures and symbols, imitative of the starry orbs of heaven, and 
the beautiful plants and flowers of the sacred Nile, together 
with the battle scenes carved upon the side walls commemorat- 
ing the victories of the Egyptian monarchs, or processions to 
their gods, all blended by a rich and glowing reflection of the 
light admitted from the side aperture, we may fancy what must 
have been the impressiveness and beauty of this hall in its state 
of pristine perfection. It is certainly the most elegant, if not 
the most stupendous in Egypt. 

Among the battle scenes on the south wall of the great hall, 
t one is left — a curious scene, displaying the mode of attacking a 
j fortress upon a rock. Under cover of the testudo, a shield 
! composed of frame-work, and propped up, large enough to 
I shelter several men, and curved so as to afford a footing to 
I others, the assailants are engaged in mining, and planting 
! scaling ladders against the walls. Of these testudos, four are 
I commanded by sons of Rameses the Great. One of their allies, 
I the extreme figure on the left, is endeavoring by use of a 
sharp spike placed in the fissures to clamber up the rock, which 
I others, mounted on the testudos, are vigorously escalading. The 
i 23 



178 



BATTLE SCENE. 



sculptor seems to have chosen a moment when the defence, 
still maintained on one side, by means of darts, stones, and 
spears, is slackening on the other, signals of surrender are 
making from above, and heralds are letting themselves down 
to treat of it, and implore the clemency of the victor. At the 
base of the tower, chariots and horsemen are rushing up to 
the scene of the assault. The whole effect is exceedingly life- 
like, natural, and striking, and probably represents some in- 
cident in one of the oriental campaigns of the monarch. 




On the upper end of the hall, Rameses is represented receiv- 
ing the emblems of life and power from Amun, the presiding 
deity of Thebes, and there is a long procession of his sons and 
daughters. From the great hall the visitor advanced into 
several smaller chambers, the first of which being apparently 
the library, over which Hecataeus praises the inscription which 
calls the books of Thoth the " medicine of the mind." It is 
adorned with astronomical subjects, and the inmost, to which 
access was given by a door of two folds revolving on bronze 
pins, were also covered with sculptures representing the mon- 
arch making offerings to the gods. 

Nigh to the exterior of the Memnonium are several masses 



SUN-DRIED BRICKS. 179 

of the crude or sun-dried bricks, which are so common at Thebes, 
of which the external inclosures of the precincts of the tem- 
ples were formed, as well as the greater part of the private 
buildings of the city. These are peculiarly interesting, as being 
the same alluded to in the Bible, at the making of which the 
captive Israelites toiled in Lower Egypt, and, as some have 
imagined, even at Thebes, from certain representations of the 
process of making them, which are painted in the tombs. They 
are made of clay combined with chopped straw, as mentioned 
in the Scripture account. It is supposed by Wilkinson that this 
making of bricks was a royal monopoly, from the oval names 
of the different kings which are stamped upon them. Friable 
as they are, and easily broken with a hammer, they perfectly 
retain, after a lapse of three thousand years, their original form 
and stamp. Several of them are preserved in the British Mu- 
seum. They are about 16 inches long, 7 wide, and 5 thick. 

From the Memnonium I proceeded toward the Vocal Mem- 
non, but the progress of the inundation had so saturated the 
surrounding soil, that I was unable to reach its base. This 
statue, and its fellow, standing austere and solemn in the midst 
of the lone expanse, appear more weather-beaten and scarred by 
external injury and by the hand of time than any other monu- 
ments in this vast field of ruin. Their lineaments are half- 
effaced, and their gigantic limbs fractured and blackened. It 
has been often remarked that Egyptian ruins are in general far 
from impressing us with a sense of their immense antiquity, 
owing to the absence of those gray hues and weather stains, 
and that overgrowth of shrouding vegetation, which give so 
venerable an air to those of Europe, whose age is com- 
paratively but of yesterday. In this dry and cloudless clime, 
the temples seem, as it has been well expressed, " to whiten and 
burnish under the sun of the desert ;" and so perfect is often the 
stone-work, so sharp the chiseling, and brilliant the colors of 
edifices raised three thousand years ago, that one might suppose 
that they were but yesterday hurled from perfection into ruin. 



ISO MODE OF TRANSPORT. 

Not SO, however, with this pair — survivors of the downfall 
which has overtaken other colossi of materials more solid. 
Hoary, and blackened, and time-worn, they may well seem to 
have already outlived the fall of empires and creeds, and yet 
to be destined in their immovable solidity to testify of the gran- 
deur of ancient Thebes to nations yet unborn. 

When we consider the astonishing magnitude of these statues, 
and of that still more extraordinary one of the Memnonium which 
we have just described, as well as of the obelisks at Karnak, we 
are puzzled how to conceive of their mode of transport or erec- 
tion. The stone from which the two sitting statues are cut, is 
not found, as Wilkinson informs us, within several days' journey 
of the place, and the Syenite granite of the Memnonium was 
brought from the cataracts to Thebes, a distance of 138 miles. 
The block being separated from the contiguous mass by the 
action of wedges, and hewn into shape, scaffoldings were raised 
about it, and it was polished and completed by the workmen. 
The mode of transport was probably by water, but we are at a 
loss to suggest the means of lowering and raising at will such 
stupendous masses. A most interesting representation of the 
manner of dragging along a colossus was discovered by Irby and 
Mangles, in a tomb, and is figured and described in Wilkinson's 
work. A body of nearly two hundred men, probably cap- 
tives, such alone being employed in similar services, are ar- 
ranged in four columns, and are toiling under the eye of the 
taskmaster, at the exhausting task of dragging the statue by 
ropes, inch by inch, toward the place of its destination. This 
statue was not above half the size of the colossi, consequently 
we must suppose double the number of men to have been here 
employed. It is placed in a sledge, and the inclined plane, 
whether on the ground or of boarding, is being greased or wet- 
ted to facilitate the descent. A man stands on the knee of the 
colossus, beating time, or uttering, like the Nile boatmen, a shout, 
by which the captives, as they repeated it, might count each 
separate pulsation of their long-continued agony. It is fearful 



THE VOCAL MEMNON. 181 

to think how many victims of the fate of war, torn from distant 
climes and deprived of every solace, must have perished, the 
weak with the strong, in these exhausting labors. We may 
hear the panting cry, and mark the failing strength, as, urged 
along by the blow of the taskmaster, the sinking captive 
dropped upon the sand, a vision of his distant country rushing 
through his expiring brain. We may imagine, too, the sense of 
exultation with w^hich the Thebans would witness the rearing of 
these statues of their great w^arrior kings, only to be equaled 
by the savage satisfaction with which a foreign invader would 
behold them retributively hurled prostrate on the sand, from 
which they would never again be raised. 

A peculiar, almost poetical interest hovers about the statue 
invested by ancient tradition with the name of the "Vocal 
Memnon," which, according to old accounts, when the sun rose 
above the Arabian mountains and touched its lips with light, 
was supposed to utter responsive sounds ; even modern visitors 
having repaired there before sunrise with vague expecta- 
tion, that, by the operation of some peculiar cause, not yet 
understood, the marvel might be realized for them, but in vain. 
Some have considered the sounds as produced by accident, and 
instances of a somewhat similar nature have certainly been met 
with, of tones issuing forth from among hollow rocks ; but there 
is far more reason to believe, that it was a contrivance of the 
priesthood to extend their influence over a superstitious people. 
The mystery, to all appearance, has been unraveled by Sir G. 
Wilkinson : he had remarked, that one of the visitors had com- 
pared the sound to that of brass ; and ascended to the lap of 
the statue, first posting some Arabs at its base, who exclaimed, 
as he struck the stone with a hammer, "You are striking brass." 
This explanation, however, has not satisfied every one. 

Inscriptions expressive of the admiration or spleen of trav- 
elers, are nowhere more numerous than on this statue. 
Great numbers of Greeks and Romans visited it in the reign 
of Hadrian and the Antonines, and never failed to repair 



182 KOM EL HATTAN. 

thither at sunrise. When Hadrian visited Thebes the second 
time, his empress was disappointed at not hearing the musical 
sounds, but on her hinting threats of the emperor's displeasure, 
her curiosity was gratified on the following morning. 

These statues were not, as would be the first impression of 
the ordinary visitor, isolated monuments of Theban magnifi- 
cence, but stood in advance of an extensive temple, of which 
few vestiges now remain, at " Kom el Hattan, or the mound of 
sandstone," in the rear ; and to the south of them. With this 
they were connected by a long Dromos, or avenue, which, with 
other statues, Wilkinson supposes to have extended across the 
western portion of the city, and to have communicated with 
Luxor by a ferry across the Nile, and thus to have been a 
main thoroughfare of ancient Thebes. What a vision of 
past magnificence, of warlike or religious pageants passing to 
and fro, does this bring up before us ! How many successive 
generations must have trodden the pavement of this royal 
street ! At that period, the level of the inundated plain, as well 
as of the bed of the river, of course was much lower than at 
present ; so that the inundation did not extend so far back tow- 
ard the western mountain, nor, as now, cover the bases of the 
statues which rest on the sand, with a deposit several feet 
deep. 

It will be observed in the drawing, that the upper half of the 
Vocal Memnon (the nearer statue) has been built up again in 
huge layers of masonry. Strabo was told that its previous de- 
struction was caused by the shock of an earthquake ; but there 
can be little doubt, that it was the work of Cambyses when he 
ravaged the adjacent Memnonium. The dimensions of the 
statues are about the same as those of the wonderful one at the 
Memnonium already figured, but they must yield to that in the 
solidity of the material, these being single blocks of sandstone 
instead of Syenite granite. To this more friable material the 
comparative antiquity of their appearance is much owing. On 
each side of the leg is a female statue, and on the side a repre- 



PITS AND TOMBS OF GORNOU. 183 

sentation of the god Nilus, bending the stalks of two water- 
plants, indicative of the upper and lower country, above a 
tablet containing the two cartouches of Amunothph III.,* and 
supposed to indicate his sovereignty over the upper and lower 
country. There is also a line of hieroglyphics down the back 
of the statue. 

Such are the principal objects (for they are not all) on the 
western bank of the Nile, of which an idea can be conveyed to 
the reader by the aid of the pencil. As I have said before, 
these isolated monuments are far from giving an adequate im- 
pression of Thebes. They stand on the edge of a vast funereal 
field, extending from the cultivated alluvium to the sandstone 
mountain which bounds the plain intersected by obscure and 
dangerous paths among yawning mummy-pits and graves. 
Ranges of tombs hewn in the mountain above, some greater in 
extent even than those of the kings, penetrate far into the 
bowels of the mountain ; chamber after chamber, and passage 
after passage, whose walls, as the light is applied to them, 
kindle into vivid epitome of the life of the old Egyptian world, 
— its religious solemnities, its familiar usages, its progress from 
the cradle to the grave, its scenes of daily domestic life, of high 
festivity and solemn funeral, with the passage of the dead into 
the realms of futurity, the judgment, and the mysterious trans- 
migration of the soul. Who could suspect that all this is re- 
vealed to us in these wonderful sepulchers, which externally 
appear but holes in the sandy rock ? and how strange and sad 
is it to come forth to the light of day after this long and ab- 
sorbing converse in these dusky recesses with the past life of 
this great people, and behold the wrecks of their proud city 
wide-spread over the empty, desolate plain ! 

The pits also in which are deposited the mummied remains of 
the ancient inhabitants are among the most singular spectacles. 
Some of the bodies are merely dried, but those of the more 
wealthy classes, enveloped in a shroud of fine linen, with aro- 

* Wilkinson. 



184 MUMMIFICATION. 

matic guins, are heaped together in horrid, grotesque confusion, 
like the skeletons and heaps of bones in a neglected charnel- 
house. The resurrection-men of Gornou, who house themselves 
in the tombs cut in the rock, are regularly employed in rifling 
these pits in quest of articles to be sold to travelers ; sometimes 
an entire mummy in its case is carried off to be sold intact, 
others are rent to pieces in quest of the ornaments which may 
have been buried with their possessors ; the painted case or 
prepared linen which may have enveloped the body is ruth- 
lessly torn off, and the shriveled, ghastly carcasses are scattered 
about in all directions in the sand, generally dismembered. 
Every thing seems given up to ruthless havoc, and yet the 
stock of plunder is unexhausted, for in these cemeteries a whole 
nation is entombed. 

" Mummification," says Gliddon in his interesting essay, from 
which these particulars are compressed, " preceded, in all proba- 
bility, the building of the pyramids and tombs, because vestiges 
of mummies have been found in the oldest of these, and, in fact, 
the first mummies were buried in the sand before the Egyptians 
possessed the necessary tools for excavating sepulchers in the 
rock. In the time of Joseph the art was not new. Manetho 
and Clemens Alexandrinus mention circumstances which lead 
us to infer the existence of manuscript treatises on the art 
between 3000 and 5000 years ago, which is confirmed by 
passages in the " Book of the Dead" at Turin, translated by Dr. 
Lepsius. The practice continued long after the Christian era, 
and some of the fathers made it the object of their anathemas. 
It did not cease entirely till the seventh century after Christ, 
or the Muslim invasion. Thus we may suppose that mummi- 
fication has subsisted for a period, in round numbers, of some 
4000 years. The number of mummies are between four and 
five hundred millions. The earliest mummy-cases, like that, for 
instance, of king Mencheres in the British Museum, were ex- 
tremely simple, and the bodies were prepared with natron, or 
dried in ovens, and wrapped in woolen cloth, linen being 



GLIDDON 0^ MUMMIFICATION. 



185 



then, probably, unknown. In the mummies of the 12th 
dynasty, this material is already in use. The bodies are par- 
tially gilded, and great luxury introduced in the decorations ; 
and thus the relative antiquity of mummies can be deduced 
from the successive fashions of embalmment. Of these the 
epoch of bitumen forms a grand era, at the 15th dynasty ; for 
then this substance, which was unknown to the Egyptians prior 
to the conquests of Assyria by the early Pharaohs of the 15th 
dynasty, began to be used. Mr. Birch has discovered data 
which indicate very distinctly the epoch when bitumen began 
to be used in mummification. Among the articles of tribute 
exacted by Thothmes III., in the 16th century before Christ, 
from the conquered princes of Nineveh, Shinar, Naharine, 
Babel, and the Mesopotamian provinces, which are recorded on 
the tablet of Karnak, now in the Louvre, it is said that the 
chief of the country brought, among other tributes to the Pha- 
raoh, 2050 ingots of bitumen. Now as bitumen is an Asiatic 
production, abundant near the Euphrates, it was inaccessible 
to the Egyptians until Assyria was conquered by the Pharaohs 
of the 18th dynasty." 

" The dried corpse of the humble quarryman was merely 
saturated with natron, baked in an oven, swathed sometimes in 
woolen rags, and covered with palm branches and papyrus 
matting ; while on the body of the wealthy priest were lavished 
the most expensive spices and perfumes ; after which it was 
wrapped in many hundred yards of the finest tissue, and placed 
in three coffins, all sculptured, painted, gilded, and enameled, 
with a superfluity of extravagance. The great majority, how- 
ever, belonged to the middle class." 

" Every provincial temple was provided with an establish- 
ment; for the purpose of mummification. The bodies were 
delivered to the priests to be embalmed, and after seventy days 
restored to their friends to be carried to the place of deposit. 
The paintings in the tombs represent funeral processions, in 
which we see the mummy transported in cars, or borne on 

24 



186 THE ARABIAISr SIDE. 

sledges drawn by oxen, and attended by mourning friends. 
The mummies of Jacob and Joseph were thus carried from 
Egypt into the land of Canaan." 

Few things are more impressive than to wander among this 
Necropolis of Thebes, where the mighty and the rich lie 
blended with inferior dust ; bewildered among this chaos of 
tombs, and mummy pits, and yawning chasms, among which 
you must cautiously pick your way, when the sole sound is the 
savage yelling of the dogs of Gornou echoing wildly among the 
clifls ; when the sun, sinking behind the western mountain, 
touches with its red beams the summit of the Memnonium, and 
the long shadows from the hoary colossi stretch across the 
desolate plain ; and you hasten away from the inhospitable 
shore to regain the shelter and comfort of your little boat — 
your floating home upon the Nile. 



Having explored, though very imperfectly, the wonders of 
j the western suburb, when the sun had hardly risen we hoisted 
; our lateen sails and crossed over from the Libyan to the Arabian 
j side of the Nile. As we neared the temple of Luxor the 
j golden light slanted through its massive columns, which were 
j finely reflected in the still waters of the river. The Fellahs 
from the village had come down to fill their water-skins, which 
j were arranged on the backs of camels, and the buffaloes had 
i already taken to the cooling stream, in which they immersed 
j themselves till only the tips of their noses and horns were visible. 
1 Our approach was not unobserved, and hardly had the little 

, vessel landed at the old Roman pier in the distance of our view, 
j before we were boarded by the ugliest as well as most im- 
i portunate Ghawazee or dancing-girls we had yet met with, to- 
I gether with guides and donkey-boys, all equally eager to devote 
j their several talents to our immediate gratification. It was with 
I some difl^culty we got rid of these troublesome visitors, and 
I advanced toward the village. A chorus composed of importu- 
nate cries for beckshish and a fierce yelling of dogs, saluted us 



%* m\\ 




d 
M 
o 
y 

o 

i 'I 'III' 



i 




o 
>^ 

Ph 

o 
P s 



THE PROPYLON OF LUXOR. 



187 



on our way to the temple, an ignoble welcome to this scene of 
majestic ruin. From its beautiful situation on a rising ground 
above the Nile, the temple of Luxor must have had a singularly 
fine effect in its pristine perfection, but it is now perhaps the 
least interesting of all the buildings of Thebes, being so dis- 
guised by the mud hovels and paltry buildings of the modern 
village, clustered around the base of the columns or piled upon 
the tops of the colonnades, that few portions assume any grandeur 
of effect. The view I have selected will illustrate these remarks, 
and give an idea of the great extent of the edifice, the details of 
which I shall not attempt to describe. One noble group of 
objects, however, must not be dismissed without especial notice 
— the celebrated obelisk and propylsea, or gateway towers, 
through which lay the approach to the courts of the temple 
within, and of which the camera drawing will I hope convey an 
accurate impression. Of the two obelisks of red granite which 
formerly stood here, one now embellishes the Place de la 
Concorde at Paris ; the other, though deeply buried in sand, is 
one of the finest monuments of Thebes ; the depth of the 
hieroglyphics, about 2 inches, is unusual, and gives to them an 
extraordinary relief and sharpness. Two sitting statues of 
Rameses II., also half covered with sand, appear behind the 
obelisks and add much to the grandeur of the entrance ; the dark 
gray hue of the granite contrasts finely with the sand, and the 
puny, squalid figures passing and repassing, give a vastness 
and solemnity to those colossal wrecks. Behind towers a noble 
propylon, though its effect is much impaired by the ruin 
of the bold cornice which gave it so grand and imposing a 
termination ; its immense level facade is crowded with the in- 
cidents of a tumultuous battle scene, the stone is alive with the 
shock of warring squadrons ; on one compartment the triumph- 
ant king is driving his chariot upon hosts of flying enemies ; on 
the other, he is represented after victory, seated on his throne, 
the vanquished monarch bound to his chariot-wheels awaits 
the pleasure of his conqueror ; other suppliants bend before 



188 APPROACH TO KARNAK. 

him, and below appears a sad array of fated captives. Terror 
and inexorable sternness are the qualities with which the 
sculptor has evidently labored to invest his hero. This is the 
most elaborate among the number of similar scenes at Thebes, 
but it is so high above the ground that its details are not to be 
made out with ease, and the effect of the sculpture is much im- 
paired by the lines of the masonry. Still it is indeed mag- 
nificent. 

Leaving Luxor, I now mounted on a donkey, and struck 
across the plain, which was formerly covered with the buildings 
of the city, toward Karnak, the last and crowning marvel of 
all Thebes. An avenue about a mile in length formerly con- 
ducted from Luxor, bordered by a double row of sphynxes, of 
w^hich few traces now remain. There must have been some- 
thing very awful and impressive in this long avenue of these 
sacred and mysterious figures, uniting the head of a human be- 
ing to the body of a lion, emblematic of the union of wisdom 
and power — like the long avenues of upright stones which led 
to the rude Druidical temples of Avebury on the Wiltshire 
downs, it must have prepared the mind of the worshiper for 
the subduing grandeur of the more sacred inclosures to which 
it led. None of these singular statues now remain perfect, but 
here and there a fragment appears. Following this long and 
majestic approach, we reach at length a point at which the first 
view of Karnak burst upon us. A noble pylon, or gateway, oc- 
cupies the center of the field of ruin ; behind it is seen the small 
temple built by Rameses IV. ; to the right, among palm-trees, 
appear the remains of a majestic propylon; which formed the 
entrance to a succession of ruined courts by which the great 
temple was approached on this side, of which, quite in the back- 
ground, a small portion is visible, together with its obelisk. 
The pylon, a specimen of the later or Ptolemaic style, is cer- 
tainly one of the very finest specimens of Egyptian architecture 
remaining. Nothing can exceed the majestic simplicity of its 
colossal proportions — the beautiful relief of the cornice. It 



O 

^ o 
3 W 



•^ N 




THE WINGED GLOBE. 189 

stands erect and lonely among the wrecks around with a pecu- 
liarly noble effect, beyond perhaps that of any single monument 
in Thebes ; and in passing under it our ideas are raised to a 
height of wonder, and prepared for the colossal scale and vast 
extent of the field of ruins to which it gives access. Its 
sculptures, however, are not to be compared with those of an 
earlier date. The majestic cornice is ornamented with a fine 
specimen of the " Winged Globe," so universal in Egypt, a 
beautiful emblem, to adopt Gliddon's description, of Providence 
overshadowing the land of the Nile. " The central disk of the 
sun, allegorical of physical and celestial light, and surmounted 
by the ram's horn, symbolical of Amun Knum — divine in- 
telligence, is flanked by the wings of Maut — the beneficent 
mother, or more probably of the Scarabaeus, or sacred beetle, 
symbol of Kheper — the Creator sun. From the central solar 
disk depend two crowned royal asps, symbolical of sovereignty, 
— the red crown of terrestrial, and the white of celestial do- 
minion, and the cruces ansatae, or ' taus,' hanging by their necks, 
typifying eternity. In the literal Hebrew text, Isaiah apostro- 
phizes Egypt, (ch. xviii. 1,) ' Ho ! land of the winged (Globe).' " 
The small temple in the rear of this gate will not long detain 
us from the more imposing ruins of the Great Temple. To this 
immense pile, the work of successive ages, there are, of course, 
different entrances ; but the principal one, and that by which 
the extent and symmetry of the plan is best understood, is by 
the colossal propylon facing the river : and, looking across tow- 
ard the temple at Gornou, a line of sphynxes also led up a 
rising ground to the vast propylon, the largest in Egypt, which, 
like two mighty towers of rude masonry, formed a grand and 
impressive approach. From its summit, or the top of the walls 
which connect it with the great court, a view is obtained, which, 
in its full extent, must baffle aU description, — there is nothing 
like it even in Thebes, — not one alone, but a perfect wilderness of 
temples, courts, propylaea, gateways, and obelisks, extends around. 
Some, buried under the ruins of ages, yawn from beneath like 



190 



GENERAL VIEW OF KARNAK. 



caverns ; others stand erect in towering grandeur, part perfect, 
and elsewhere hurled as if by thunderbolts into chaotic confu- 
sion. Beyond the main mass of the great temple, the heart of 
ancient Thebes, others indistinctly appear, with the numerous 
propylsea which gave access to them, and the avenues by which 
they were united to the principal edifice, receding on all hands 
with an effect of bewildering grandeur. Add to this the out- 
stretched lonely plain beyond, with its groves of palm inter- 
sected by the river, and the distant mountains and temples and 
countless tombs of the Libyan suburb on the opposite bank ; 
and some faint idea may, perhaps, be formed of this extra- 
ordinary wilderness of ruin, and of the feeling of astonishment 
it awakens in the mind of the spectator. 

To attempt any detailed and minute description of this ir- 
regular assemblage of sacred edifices would be useless in a 
work of this nature, which rather seeks to convey the impres- 
sion occasioned by a few of the more remarkable objects than 
to enter into details ; moreover, without a plan the most 
elaborate description of this nature would be absolutely unin- 
telligible. Even with the admirable survey of Wilkinson, with 
which every one should be provided, lying before me as I write, 
the plan appears so confused, that memory can not retain more 
than a few of its more salient points. This spot appears to have 
been the most sacred in Thebes. To the original temple, early 
as Osirtesen 11. , which was of small dimensions, additions were 
continually made, till it assumed a vastness and splendor un- 
equaled by any other monument in the city. Other temples 
were erected in the vicinity of this most sacred site, and succes- 
sively united, by avenues of sphynxes and majestic propyleea and 
courts, with the principal edifice, till the whole formed a maze 
of religious edifices through which the ancient Egyptian must 
have wandered with awe, and which, in their original perfec- 
tion, with the gorgeous ceremonial of the worship performed 
in them, must have produced a soul-subduing effect upon this 
superstitious people. 



o !z; 




» 2! 



t-i H M 

q 2 « 
^22 



FIRST COURT OF KARNAK. 191 

But to return to the great propylon. The first view pre- 
sented shows the great court to which it gives access ; in the 
fore-ground is the wall forming its boundary ; the corresponding 
one opposite is seen attached to the base of the propylon, and, 
running up to a small temple, let in, as it were, to the court, 
the external wall of which, just beyond, contains a sculptured 
representation of Sheshonk, the Shishak of the Book of Kings, 
leading his prisoners, among which it is supposed are the cap- 
tive Jews from Jerusalem, which was taken by this monarch. 
In the open distant ground beyond this side of the court, ap- 
pear in perspective, on the right hand, the propylaea of another 
small temple of the Ptolemaic period, with the noble gateway 
beyond, by which we approached ; and farther to the left, a 
succession of ruined propylaea, through which was another 
approach to the great temple from a smaller one beyond. 
Another small temple standing in this court is seen buried at 
the right-hand corner of the view under the accumulated ruin 
of ages. A noble row of columns, of which only one is standing, 
formed a solemn avenue of approach across the court from the 
external propylon to the inner one, one side of which is shat- 
tered and falling, and its vast blocks are hurled one upon an- 
other in wild confusion, as though by some convulsion. Through 
this second propylon we pass under a ruined vestibule and lofty 
gate which formed the front of the Great Hall ; and here seating 
ourselves among the fallen blocks, the columns of this majestic 
ruin burst upon us in long perspective, with the obelisk and 
gateways extending toward the distant sanctuary, and other still 
more remote buildings. So bewildering are all these details that 
I can scarcely hope to give but a very general idea of them. 

We had spent so much time in the examination of Luxor, 
and of the other portions of Karnak, that the evening was ad- 
vanced when we arrived at the Great Hall. The shadows were 
creeping solemnly through the intricate recesses of its forest of 
columns, but the red light rested for a while upon their beauti- 
ful flower-shaped capitals, the paintings upon which, scarred and 



192 TWILIGHT IN THE GREAT HALL. 

worn as they are by the accidents of 3000 years, still display, 
under a strong light, much of their original vividness. It i? 
a perfect wilderness of ruin, almost outrunning the wildest 
imagination or the most fantastic dream. We paced slowly 
down the central avenue. The bases of the columns are buried 
among the fallen fragments of the roof and a mass of superin- 
cumbent earth ; from his hiding-place amid which the jackal 
began to steal forth, and wake the echoes of the ruins with his 
blood-curdUng shriek; while the shadowy bat flitted, spirit- 
like, from dusky pillar to pillar. From the center of the hall, 
whichever way we looked through the deepening gloom, there 
seemed no end to the labyrinthine ruins. Obelisks and columns, 
some erect in their pristine beauty, others fallen across, and 
hurled together in hideous confusion, forming wild arcades of 
ruin ; enormous masses of prostrate walls and propylaea, seemed 
to have required either to construct or to destroy them the power 
of a fabled race of giants. Pillars, obelisks, and walls of this 
immense hall, were covered with the forms of monarchs who 
reigned, and of the gods who were once worshiped within it. 
Involuntarily the mind goes back, in gazing on them, to the 
period of its original splendor, when Rameses in triumph re- 
turned from its oriental conquests, — pictures the pile in all its 
completeness, the hall of a hundred and thirty columns with its 
superb roof, glittering in all the vivid beauty of its paintings, 
thronged with monarchs, and priests, and worshipers, and 
devoted to splendid and gorgeous ceremonies. 

The impression produced by Egyptian architecture, and par- 
ticularly by this stupendous hall, as well as by the mute forms 
which gaze upon us from the walls, is one of profound solemnity 
rather than the admiration of beauty. There is none of the 
divine intellectual harmony of Grecian art. We are awed by 
the vastness and simplicity of the temples, and by the abstruse 
symbols of the Egyptian religion with which they are covered. 
It has been remarked that this feeling grows upon the traveler 
-as he remains in Egypt. Every thing that he falls in with 



RELIGION OF THE EGYPTIANS. 



193 



tends to deepen it, to convince him that he is gazing upon the 
works of a great and thoughtful people, whose " wisdom" was 
proverbial in the most ancient times. Like the old pilgrims of 
Greece, who came to Egypt to study its science and religion, 
and who departed full of admiration and wonder ; the trav- 
eler carries away from the sight of its ruins something of the 
same awe-struck and reverential spirit, and what was at first 
regarded as a mere spectacle gradually becomes with him a 
serious study. 

In regard to the religion of ancient Egypt — the learned 
priests had, about the Christian era, arrived at the conception of 
the unity of God, but believing this idea to be too abstruse for 
the mass, they symbolized the different attributes of Divinity in 
the form of different gods, which, though to themselves merely 
emblems, were the objects of the superstitious veneration of the 
common people. Their more profound doctrine was only dis- 
closed to those initiated into the mysteries. Many, however, 
are inclined to doubt whether the early religion of the Egyp- 
tians was originally any thing more than a gross Polytheism, or 
Manichaeism ; that it was not till a late period that they acquired 
the sublime idea of the Divine unity, and that they then re- 
duced to mere symbols what before were so many independent 
objects of worship. Such as it was, religion was interwoven 
with every thing in Egypt. The first government of Thebes 
was priestly, and when it became a monarchy, the king was 
always invested with a sacerdotal character. We see him 
everywhere upon the temples represented as offering sacrifices 
to the gods, and receiving from them the investiture with " life 
and power." A spirit of devotion was kept alive in the people 
by a constant round of religious ceremonies, a reference of every 
thing to the gods. A severe morality was inculcated, after 
death the actions of the departed were weighed before Osiris, 
and the souls of the wicked condemned to inhabit the bodies of 
obscene and unclean animals, till after their allotted period of 
purification was fulfilled. Every contrivance of the priests 

25 



194 DETAILS OF THE GREAT HALL. 

tended to produce a spirit of profound reverence, which, how- 
ever, degenerated into a narrow and slavish superstition. 

Amun, the presiding deity of Thebes, may, as Wilkinson ob- 
serves, be considered under two distinct characters, — as Amun- 
re, king of the gods, answerable to the Grecian Jupiter, or as 
Amunre Generator. Amun with Maut and Khonso formed 
the great triad of divinities worshiped at Thebes. The 
forms and emblems of these deities, in different combinations, 
look down upon us from every part of the temple. Beside the 
divinities who had here their worship and their oracles, the 
city of Thebes possessed her own presiding genius or god- 
dess, whose emblems were discovered by Sir Gardner Wilkin- 
son in his examination of the great temple. 

Next morning, after an early breakfast, I was again among 
the ruins of the Great Hall, which I had but imperfectly surveyed 
the previous evening. I remained there the whole day, shifting 
from the shade of one column to another during the noontide 
heat. Salem sent me some provisions by one of the sailors. I 
give its dimensions from Wilkinson, with a description of the 
rest of the temple. "It measures 170 feet by 329, supported by a 
central avenue of twelve massive columns, 66 feet high (without 
the pedestal and abacus) and 12 in diameter, beside a hundred 
and twenty-two of smaller, or rather less gigantic dimensions, 41 
feet 9 inches in height, and 27 feet 6 inches in circumference, dis- 
tributed in seven lines on either side of the former. The twelve 
central columns were originally fourteen, but the two northern- 
most have been inclosed within the front towers or propylaea, 
apparently in the time of Osirei himself, the founder of the hall. 
The two at the other end were also partly built into the project- 
ing wall of the doorway, as appears from their rough sides, which 
were left uneven for that purpose. Attached to this are two other 
towers, closing the inner extremity of the hall, beyond which 
are two obelisks, one still standing on its original site, the other 
having been thrown down and broken by human violence. 
vSimilar but smaller propylaea succeed to this court, of which they 



THE SAJSrCTUARY. 



195 



form the inner side.'' This is the spot which I have selected 
for a retrospective view of^ the Great Hall, the obelisk still 
standing, but the propylaea in the fore-ground a mass of utter 
ruin. Still following the intricate plan of the great temple 
through the ruined propylaea in the fore-ground, we reach 
another court with two obehsks of larger dimensions, the one 
now standing being 92 feet high and 8 square, surrounded by a 
peristyle, if I may be allowed the expression, of Osiride figures. 
Passing between two dilapidated propylaea, you enter another 
smaller area, ornamented in a similar manner, and succeeded by 
a vestibule, in front of the granite gateways that form the facade 
of the court before the sanctuary. This last is also of red 
granite, divided into two apartments, and surrounded by numer- 
ous chambers of small dimensions, varying from 29 feet by 16, 
to 16 feet by 8. The walls of this small sanctuary, standing 
on the site of a more ancient one, are highly polished, sculp- 
tured, and painted, and the ceiling of stars, on a blue ground, 
the whole exquisitely finished. The entire height of the hall, 
i. e. the central portion, is not less than 80 feet, the propylaea 
still higher. 

The imagination is no doubt bewildered in following these 
numerous details, and yet much is left undescribed and even 
unnoticed, and the eye, even of the visitor, more than satisfied 
with seeing, will return to the prominent objects, those alone of 
which he can expect to retain a vivid recollection. The Great 
Hall will attract his attention above every thing else. Of its 
immensity the different views introduced will, I hope, convey 
some impression, though confessedly a very inadequate one. 
Beside the grandeur of its proportions, he will be struck 
with the elaborate manner in which every part was sculptured 
and painted, with representations of the worship of the chief 
deity of Thebes, which, emblematic as they might be to the 
learned, to the common people must have had a highly debasing 
and sensualizing tendency. Perhaps the finest historical sculp- 
tures at Thebes are to be found on the eastern external wall of 



196 



SPLENDID SCULPTURES. 



the Great Hall. Here the genius of Egyptian sculpture appears 
to have reached its height, and to approach the high character 
of Grecian art, and we admire no less the fertility of invention, 
masterly execution, and expression which animates the several 
groups, than we follow out with interest all the incidents of 
the different wars and triumphs of the Egyptian monarchs, so 
vividly represented, the scene of which Wilkinson supposes to 
have been in Asia, as the names of ' Canana' and ' Lemanon' are 
deciphered among the list of places. Tablets recording similar, 
if not the same expeditions, I remember to have seen in Syria, 
one by the road-side at Nahr el Kelb, near Beirout. Rameses 
II., (supposed by Wilkinson to be the same as Sesostris,) and 
his father Osirei, are the great heroes of these exploits : famous 
in war and splendid in peace, they spent their early years in 
extending the conquests of Egypt, and then returned to Thebes 
to commemorate them upon the walls of their temples and 
palaces, equally remarkable for the grand and stern simplicity 
and massiveness of their architecture, which is the best type 
of the Egyptian style, and for the vigorous and original charac- 
ter of the decorative bas-reliefs. 

We were fortunate enough to reach Karnak when the moon 
was near the full. Already bewildering by day from its vast 
extent, by night it seemed almost illimitable. Then is the time 
to wander through its huge propylsea in solemn shadow ; its 
long lines of wall carved with the achievements of ancient 
kings, shadowy specters of remote history ; its lofty obelisks 
piercing the pure and intense depths of the nocturnal sky and 
confounding their hieroglyphics with the stars ; its vast avenues 
of columns, through which the moonlight forces an intricate 
pathway ; some in deep shade with their edges only illuminated, 
others basking in the whitening beams, with their hieroglyphics 
and paintings almost as vivid as by day. Enormous heaps of 
ruin, distant gateway towers marking the avenues of approach, 
expand mysteriously beyond the reach of vision ; while the 
plain, with its green crops and palm-groves, the Nile, like a bar 



THIEVISH BOATMEN. 197 

of silver in its midst, the Libyan suburb, its colossi, and 
temples, the western mountain perforated with its countless 
tombs, faintly relieving from the starlit sky, complete the awful 
magnificence of the picture. 

After wandering about the ruins, our rides back across the 
moonlit plain to Luxor were delightful. As we approached 
the lights twinkled amid its mud huts, and we caught, as we 
passed, the sounds of boisterous merriment. During our visits to 
Karnak the Reis and sailors, after the day's fast, had spent their 
time on shore between the dancing-girls and the raki bottle ; to- 
night they preferred to devote their reviving energies to a little 
steahng. For the sake of privacy we had laid the boat along- 
side an inclosed garden which came down to the river. Above 
its low wall arose some date-trees covered with the richest 
clusters, which had attracted their cupidity from the moment of 
our arrival. The proprietor, however, kept so close a watch 
that to abstract them by daylight was wholly impossible. I was 
sitting in the little cabin, and reducing to order the sights of 
the day, when I heard a loud outcry, and rushing on deck, 
found the proprietor of the fruit, who furiously pointed to the 
top of the mast, which one of the boatmen had ascended, and 
down which he was gliding, encumbered with his luscious spoil. 
The culprit was taken in the manner, and summary justice ad- 
mmistered on the spot, and, at my desire, by Salem, although, 
notwithstanding his ardent piety, I could not somehow help 
suspecting him also of being indirectly concerned in the theft. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THEBES TO ESNEH AND EDFOU. — ASSOUAN. THE CATARACTS. PHILiE. 

ABUSIMBAL. 



With the intention of passing some time on our retm-n, ad- 
vantage was taken of the Etesian wind to continue our southern 
progress. The temples gradually dwindled, the lofty w^estern 
mountain lowered, and Thebes faded upon the rearward ho- 
rizon. Landing at Hermonthis, a visit was paid to its small 
but elegant Ptolemaic temple, now fast falling into ruin. Esneh, 
which we reached next day, detained us for some hours. The 
Reis and sailors went into the town to obtain provisions, and 
we had great difficulty in getting them together. There were, 
in fact, potent attractions on shore, Esneh being the head- 
quarters of the banished dancing-girls, who flaunt about the 
bazaars with loose, immodest dresses, and dusky cheeks thickly 
covered with paint. The portico of the temple struck us as the 
most magnificent specimen of the Ptolemaic style in Egypt. 
The earth has almost covered up the exterior, although Me- 
hemet Ali has cleared out the inside, into which you, accord- 
ingly, have to descend. The columns are unusually tall and 
slender, and the exquisite variety and graceful designs of the 
capitals, all formed upon the type of different plants and flow- 
ers of the country, is nowhere surpassed, if equaled. Esneh 
is a town of some little consequence, but, like Nile towns in 
general, presents nothing to interest the traveler beyond this 
splendid portico ; and as soon as we could drive on board 
our reluctant sailors, we spread our sails and hastened up 



TEMPLE OF EDFOU. 



199 



the river. The breeze being favorable, we did not land 
to visit the very curious grottos of El Kab or Eilythias, of 
which Miss Martineau, and so many other travelers, have 
given vivid descriptions. The temple of Edfou, however, a 
very striking object from the river, tempted us awhile on 
shore. It stands on rising ground not far from the Nile, and 
as the external wall with which it is surrounded is entire, 
gives us a complete idea of the vast size and massive 
grandeur of an Egyptian temple in its state of completeness, 
serving no less as a fortress and a palace for the sacerdotal 
caste, than as a place for the solemn rites of religion. We ad- 
vanced through a wretched village of mud hovels swarming 
with ragged Fellahs, and beset by naked children, who raised a 
shrill demand of "beckshish howaga," accompanied by the 
barking of a host of dogs, who, roused by our arrival from dozing 
in the sun upon heaps of festering filth, joined the discordant 
chorus. Thus escorted we reached the magnificent propylon, 
covered with gigantic forms of mythological and regal personages, 
who seemed to look down impassive and contemptuous upon 
the din and dust raised by the degenerate tenants of their be- 
loved and once glorious land. Spite of the sticks of dragoman 
and boatmen, some of the more active contrived to glide in with 
us, unperceived, to the interior, while others, climbing Hke 
monkeys to the top of the corridors, pursued us with their 
impish antics and importunate clamor, till, their position being 
stormed, they were driven down with kicks and blows into the 
area below, raising in their escape whole clouds of suffocating 
dust. Meanwhile, passing between the solemn gateway towers, 
which are entirely perfect, we entered the first court, which is 
also entire, with its surrounding corridor supported by ranges of 
light Ptolemaic pillars, the fiat roof of which served equally as 
a promenade or vantage-ground of defense. At the extremity 
of this court, and forming the vestibule of the temple itself, is 
a magnificent corridor, now almost filled with accumulated 
earth, but with the beautiful capitals still entire, and bright 



200 VIEW FROM EDFOU. 



with azure and green as when first from the painter's hand. 
The annexed engraving is a view^ from this point, looking back 
to the entrance-towers, and a tolerably complete idea may be 
formed from it, of the imposing appearance of the access to an 
Egyptian temple in its complete state. The massive capitals of 
the corridor will show the graceful variety already noticed in 
the description of Esneh, some of which are, to our thinking, 
more beautiful than the capitals of the Greek orders. The re- 
mainder of the interior is almost filled up with rubbish, and, 
imperfectly seen, as it needs must be, hardly repays the trouble 
of groping through heaps of dust and filth. We therefore as- 
cended the roof of the corridors, and walked round great part 
of the walls, which are strong and lofty as those of a castle. 
Hence we could peep down upon the miserable mud-built 
hovels of the modern town, into its foul, narrow, blind passages, 
choked up with half-naked children and wolfish-looking dogs ; 
while beyond, the green variegated crops of the Nile valley, 1 
dotted with graceful groups of palms, and the broad river roll- , 
ing through the midst, was almost painfully in contrast with j 
the abject wretchedness and degradation of its human tenants. 
j Edfou seen, we at once rejoined our boat, and sailing on by the ! 
I light of a glorious evening, reached the remarkable pass of j 
! Hagar Silsilis, or " the Rock of the Chain." This is the only ! 
j spot all the way from the sea, w^here the river is bordered on | 
j both sides by a chain of lofty precipices coming down abruptly ! 
1 to the river, and contracting its current into a comparatively 
narrow space. Here we moored for the night, near one of the 
ancient grottoes curiously cut in the face of the crag, and early | 
in the morning were ashore to explore them. Some of them I 
are of very ancient date, and record the triun^iphs of the early 
Pharaohs over their Ethiopian enemies. But the most remark- 
able sign at Silsilis, is the sandstone quarries on both sides the 
river. From these alone, were the monuments of Egypt totally 
destroyed, we might have inferred their vast number and their 
colossal proportions. Their extent is perfectly amazing. 




HAGAR SILSILIS. 201 

'* The mountain," says Olin, " for an extent of several miles, is 
cut into yawning chasms and high^ threatening precipices, that, 
in their dimensions and variety of forms, mimic the sublime 
workmanship of nature. As the stone immediately on this bank j 
of the river was porous, and less adapted to architectural pur- 
poses, passages were cut through these useless masses into the 
heart of the mountain. I did not measure these avenues, but 
am sure that several of them are nearly half a mile in length by 
fifty or sixty feet wide and eighty deep. Many large masses 
remain as they are left by the workmen, and all the processes of 
quarrying are plainly exhibited." These excavations form a 
perfect labyrinth, and are supposed by Dr. Olin to have given 
shelter to the persecuted Christians, from the crosses that are 
painted in different places. Some idea of the peculiarities of 
this remarkable spot, of its perforated grottos, decorated with 
the achievements of the ancient kings, its fantastic rocks, one 
of which, from its resemblance to a rude pillar, is supposed to 
have originated the idea of a chain being thrown across from it 
to the opposite side, together with the immense scale of the ex- 
cavations on the eastern or Arabian side, may be formed from 
the annexed wood-cut. The whole scene is very impressive. 



2o 



202 ' ARRIVAL AT ASSOUAN. 

like the avenue of approach to some new region of wonders. 
Stemming the powerful current by the aid of our broad lateen 
sails and a strong northerly breeze, we opened another and 
wider region of the valley, adorned with clustering palm groves, 
and passing the temple of Ombos, another noble specimen of 
the later Egyptian architecture, flew swiftly on toward the 
cataracts. A sudden squall from the east brought us up in the 
midst of our rapid career, the sails were instantly let loose, 
which saved us from going down, and with great difficulty we 
made the shore, and tied our craft fast up to a group of mimosas. 
The river was one sheet of foam, the land almost obscured by 
a whirlwind of sand, which penetrated the deepest recesses 
of the palm grove where we sought a temporary refuge. 
Loosening again we soon came in sight of Assouan, the ancient 
Syene, the most picturesque spot, with the exception of Philae, 
on the whole course of the Nile. The center of the river, 
which is here of magnificent breadth and volume, is occupied 
by the green and beautiful island of Elephantine, which 
gave a title to an early dynasty of Egyptian kings. On the 
right is a high sandy eminence crowned by the ruins of a con- 
vent ; on the left the precipitous rock of Syene projects into 
the river, crowned with the ruins of a Saracenic fortress, while 
more distant hills of barren sand are dotted with tombs and 
ruins of the same period. There is no other place on the river 
to which we can so properly apply the term romantic. 

Here then we are 700 miles above the sea, and at the frontier 
post of ancient Egypt itself, though, as it is hardly necessary to 
remind the reader, the dominions of the Pharaohs extended far 
to the southward, farther perhaps toward the unknown sources 
of the Nile than is usually supposed. Syene was garrisoned at 
a later period by the Persians and Romans. There are, how- 
ever, few traces of that remote period now remaining, either at 
Assouan or Elephantine, the principal monuments being of the 
Saracenic period, coeval with the conquest of Egypt by Amer. 

We laid our boat ashore by the side of the beautiful palm 



' VIEW FROM ASSOUAN. 203 

grove that lines the bank of the river below the castle, and as 
the sun was setting, walked up to visit its hoary walls. I know 
not that I ever enjoyed myself more while upon the Nile. The 
scene from this rock is so singular, and so utterly unlike any 
thing else upon its course, but the effect was proportionally 
grateful. The river rushed past in a succession of powerful 
whirls and eddies, which as they swept along glittered in the 
dying sunbeams. Set in the midst of the coil of the troubled 
waters, were various black-colored fantastic islets, the outposts 
of the cataracts, and Elephantine with its verdant groves. It was 
delightful to lie down and listen to the sound of the rushing 
river as it swept under the hoary rock — a low and solemn 
monotone, to look up into the deepening glow of the crimsoned 
sky, to inhale an atmospheric softness which seemed to bathe 
the soul in luxury ; and what with the wildness and strangeness 
of all around, the feeling of remoteness which cleaves to " far 
Syene," the historical associations connected with it — the old 
rock of Assouan was a place from which it was difficult to tear 
oneself away. 

Arrived at the frontier of Egypt, and entering upon Nubia, 
we find not only a marked geographical division, but a different 
race of people. The Nubians are tall and slender in person — 
far less massive in build than the Theban Arabs. There is 
something of elegance in their general appearance, and the cast 
of their features is rather intellectual. They are of a soft dusky 
black or bronze tint, with a very fine skin, and they delight to 
oil their bodies, and to load their sable ringlets with unguents 
any thing but odoriferous to the European nose. Their women 
have often elicited the rapturous remarks of travelers, in whose 
eyes they move about like so many sable Venuses, realizing the 
description of our mother Eve, as being when " unadorned, 
adorned the most," their sole costume, in this serene and glowing 
climate, being an apron round the middle, and somewhat of the 
slenderest too, composed of loose thongs of leather decorated with 
small shells. Thus attired, these dusky beauties come forth from 



204 



NUBIAN WOMEN. 



among overshadowing thickets of pahn, bearing for sale elegant 
little baskets woven by them of corn-stalks and pieces of bark ; 
while the men produce a warlike array of shields of hippopota- 
mus hide, slender lances, knotted clubs, and other little imple- 
ments of destruction, which they are accustomed to make use 
of in settling; their domestic feuds. 

The beauty of these women has in truth been somewhat ex- 
aggerated, but with regard to the freedom with which it is 
exhibited, we may quote the remark of Bishop Heber in speak- 
ing of the women of India : " How entirely the idea of indeli- 
cacy, which would naturally belong to such figures as those 
now around us if they were w^hite, is prevented by their being 
of a different color to ourselves. So much are we children of 
association and habit, and so instinctively and immediately 
do our feelings adapt themselves to a total change of cir- 
cumstances ; it is the partial and the inconsistent only which 
affects us." 

I was prevented by indisposition from visiting the different 
objects of interest at Syene, which are the quarries and 
Saracenic monuments. The former are highly interesting, 
containing an obelisk left on the spot whence it was chiseled. 
Wilkinson thinks that an attentive scrutiny of the Mohammedan 
remains might bring to light important evidence as to the an- 
tiquity of the pointed arch, of which, however, the oldest 
specimen is perhaps the mosque of Omar at Jerusalem. There 
is little else beside the romantic character of the place to detain 
the traveler at this old frontier town of Egypt, which has been 
of great importance as a military post, in connection with 
Elephantine. 

I have shown more compassion to the reader than some 
travelers, who devote a large portion of their pages to 
" chronicling" their petty squabbles and the annoyances that 
may have befallen them, but I can not pass over wholly without 
notice the inivuity of my worthless Reis. I have already 
alluded to his infidel sensuality in the matter of the Ramadan ; 



FRONTIER OF EGYPT. 205 

he is devoted to dancing-girls and raki, and proves to be, like 
Dr. Olin's captain, with whom I really believe him to be 
identical, "an incompetent, stupid, and desperately lazy man." 
Our native agent at Keneh had already suggested the bastinado, 
and pohtely offered to see it applied ; but I could not consent to 
deliver him to the tender mercies of the governor, and now the 
ungrateful, indolent villain flatly refused to take me across the 
river from Assouan to the opposite side, on some pretense of 
" rocks." This time I determined on trying the stimulus of a 
little Arab persuasion, and leaping on shore with my firman, 
hurried in wrath toward the governor's ; but I had hardly gone 
a dozen paces, when the worthless fellow came running after 
me, embracing my knees, professing repentance, and promising 
reformation in the most abject manner. 

He returned to the boat unscathed, and, with unwonted 
diligence, took an oar himself, and put his huge carcass into 
such a state of activity, that in very brief space, and in spite of 
the " rocks," we landed at the foot of the high sandy bluff, which 
I was desirous of ascending. About half-way up are the ruins 
of a convent, and on the summit a small tomb or mosque, com- 
manding this frontier scene of Egypt very completely. Here 
the desert, both on the Libyan and Arabian side, comes tumbling 
in wild heaps and billows of sand, tempest-wrought and sun- 
blanched into fantastic, dreary shapes and hues, up to the bright 
blue river, which keeps on, like life in death, in ever-glorious 
flow. Reposing on its bosom, the fertile Elephantine and one 
or two other large islands, contrast their bright green corn and 
tufted palms with the prevailing hue of the sand, the hoary 
ruins of the Saracenic castle of Assouan appear on its rock, and 
the heights beyond, among which lie the celebrated quarries, 
are dotted with a few ruined tombs and mosques, which add 
the melancholy of decayed monuments of man's works to the 
eternal barrenness of nature. This view gives an excellent 
though somewhat distant idea of the numerous craggy islets, of 
every form and size, through which the Nile pours the treasures 



203 ASCENT OF THE CATARACTS. 

of its waters to fertilize the great valley of Egypt, extending 
hence seven hundred miles down to the Mediterranean. 

On our way back we touched at the island of Elephantine, 
whose present appearance is very different from its ancient one, 
its site having been once occupied, like that of Philaea,* by sacred 
buildings, of which but a few fragments have escaped ; the prin- 
cipal of them being a small granite gateway of the time of Alex- 
ander, on the southern part of the island, which is covered with 
mounds of ruin. The greater part of this delightful site is now 
overgrown with corn and interspersed with palm-groves. 

The rising Nile, it was thought, would enable us to float 
lightly over the rocks and shoals upon which boats often bump 
at low water ; accordingly we made our arrangements for ascend- 
ing the river. The " Captain of the Cataracts," as he is called, a 
Nubian from the village of Philse, was sent for ; it being his 
business {cum prwilegio) to insure the safe passage of all boats 
passing and repassing them. A bargain was soon struck ; and 
early in the morning he came on board with his men. His ap- 
pearance at once inspired confidence in his capacity and resolu- 
tion ; he stood at the helm a tall, dignified ebony statue, in a long 
blue robe and white turban ; his half-naked men he stationed 
in different parts of the boat, our own crew were to work the 
sails as ordered, and under such a leader they seemed inspired 
with a degree of alacrity very different from that 'laissez 
faire' indifference and invincible laziness which had hitherto 
been our daily torment. On one of the brightest of tropical 
mornings our broad sails were thrown out to the Etesian wind ; 
we flew rapidly through the narrow strait between the castled 
crag of Assouan and Elephantine, and soon reached the out- 
posts of that maze of rocky islets through which the noble river 
forces its tumultuous passage from Nubia into Egypt. All was 
now attention ; as we entered the foaming currents, the quick 
eye of the master-pilot glanced from rock to rock, the man at 
the bows watched the turn of every eddy ; quickly and dexter- 

* Wilkinson. 



LABYRINTH OF ISLANDS. 207 

ously our course was changed — at one moment, our huge sails, 
bellowing, straining with their utmost force through the boiling 
torrent, we seemed bearing down upon a pile of granite, against 
which our bark would have crashed like an egg-shell, when al- 
most touching it the voice of the Nubian would be heard, loud 
and clear above the roar of the troubled waters, and a sudden 
shift of our canvas w^ould bring us up on the edge of a sandy- 
shoal — nervous work enough for a few minutes ; till re-assured 
against peril by the calmness and dexterity of our pilot, we 
could feel enough at ease to enjoy the wild and exciting scene 
around, which assumed a new aspect with every turn of the 
helm. It would seem as though Osiris and Typhon, princi- 
ples of life and death — of the fertile valley and the arid desert, 
seen ever side by side in this wonderful land, had met in 
fiercest conflict, and in the midst of the coil of the half-prisoned 
river, left traces of a doubtful struggle for the mastery. Here 
rises, sheer from the flood, a huge pile of black and frowning 
basalt, intermingled with rose-colored syenite, and veined with 
white quartz ; there in vivid contrast appears some green island, 
covered with tangled palms and scented acacias ; or lovely little 
islets, bordered with a rim of the whitest and finest sand, sprin- 
kled with mimosas, and resounding with the music of birds. 
Such is fair Sehayl, its fragrant groves and thickets reposing 
with an aspect so poetical, such an air of celestial peacefulness, 
in the midst of surrounding convulsion, we wonder not that it 
should have been held sacred, and placed under the special 
protection of the goddesses Sate and Anouke, the Grecian Juno 
and Vesta. The multitude of these obstructions, wildly thrown 
together, and of every size, from large islands to single rocks, 
scarce peeping above the roaring current at this season of the 
Nile's rise, taxed to the utmost the skill and attention of our pilot. 
To thread such a labyrinth without accident seemed impossible. 
Fully to complete the strangeness of the picture should be 
added the feats and antics of the denizens of this extraordinary 
region, some of which, however, we did not happen to wit- 



208 



NUBIAN DIVERS. 



ness. " Our attention," says Olin, "was soon attracted to two 
Nubian boys, who pursued us in quest of bucksheesh, by a 
species of navigation more simple and rude than our own. 
They had bound their scanty wardrobe in a bundle upon the 
top of their heads, and seated themselves astride a stick, — 
perhaps six inches in diameter, and five feet long, the forward 
end a little flattened to diminish the resistance of the water ; 
they used their hands for paddles, and with this ticklish craft 
outsailed us, and ran across our track at pleasure. Sometimes 
they sat upright, extending their legs before them close to the 
log ; they would he on it at full length, one behind the other, 
still moving with undiminished velocity. I felt some concern 
for their adventure at first, but was soon relieved of my appre- 
hension when I saw the admirable skill with which they re- 
tained their difficult position and guided their rolling bark. 
After amusing themselves and us for a considerable time, and re- 
ceiving the bucksheesh, they returned to the shore. These boys 
were hardly more than six years of age. Soon after we witnessed 
another specimen of the aquatic skill of this amphibious race : 
— half-a-dozen young men and well -grown boys, who were 
upon the beach near us, threw off their clothes, and, running at 
full speed over the rocks for more than a quarter of a mile, to a 
bluft' overlooking the falls, plunged into the foaming torrent. 
They were borne along by the current with fearful velocity, 
tossed on high and buried, alternately, by its fury ; they dashed 
away the waves nobly, raising their hands high out of the water 
at every stroke ; the head was carried very low, with the face 
apparently in the water, to avoid the greater resistance by the 
breast. It was a wild and exciting spectacle." — On we still went, 
darting from one side to another as the eddies required, till we 
reached at length a point where the increasing roar of the river 
gave signs of serious impediment to our progress. Here our 
Nubians, leaping into the stream and gaining the overhanging 
rocks, with loud shouts began to haul up the boats ; but the 
force of the waters was such that, in spite of our still straining 



^ APPROACPI TO PHIL.E. 209 

sails, we could not breast its fury, but were evidently backing 
into a whirlpool edged with jagged rock splinters — an ominous 
predicament. It was now, at the decisive moment, that all but 
those required for the helm dashed into the flood, and with a 
long pull, and a strong pull, and a * Heylessa'* chorus, in- 
creasing in vigor and desperation with the obstacle to be sur- 
mounted, w^e shot up the rapid into the quiet water above, and 
the rocks around echoed with the shouts and laughter of the 
naked and streaming Nubians, like so many animated statues 
formed out of the black basalt crags around. A calm and noble 
reach of the majestic river, shut in like a lake with its mountain 
border, soon opened on us through a portal of the last of these 
scattered piles of somber rocks through which we had forced 
our noisy way ; and in its midst an island slept, as it were, in 
enchantment — the sacred Philae ; its temples of mysterious 
sanctity half-hidden by sheltering groves of palm, and reflected 
far down into the broad, silent, and glassy river. Gliding across 
this tranquil basin, we furled our sails and laid the boat under 
the deep cool shadow of a high bank overhung with foliage; 
certainly the most beautiful spot in Egypt. A graceful co- 
lumnar building, of the later style of Egyptian art, on a bold 
and massive foundation, looked down, from amid clusters of 
palms, upon the water — one of those combinations rather like 
the creation of a painter's fancy than an actual scene. 

The entire scenery from Assouan to Philte is so utterly un- 
like the general character of the Nile, and so impressed with an 
almost unearthly wildness — fantastic and impish, as Miss Mar- 
tineau well calls it — the frame-work in which is often set a 
beauty almost as unearthly, that no region could have been so 
well selected by the ancient Egyptians to invest with the most 
sacred scenes of their mythology. Philre itself was a spot of 
peculiar sanctity, as one of the fabled burial-places of Osiris. 
" So holy was the place," says Wilkinson, " that no one was per- 
mitted to visit it without express permission ; and it was fancied 

* " God help us I" 
26 



210 OSIRIS AND HIS FUNCTIOiS^S. 

that no bird would fly over, nor fish swim near this consecrated 
ground. " Osiris, in his mysterious character, w^as the greatest 
of the Egyptian deities, but Httle is known of those undivulged 
secrets which the ancients took so much care to conceal. So 
cautious indeed were the initiated, that they made a scruple 
even of mentioning him, and Herodotus, w4ienever he re- 
lates any thing concerning this deity, excuses himself from 
uttering his name. His principal office as an Egyptian deity 
was to judge the dead, and to rule over that kingdom w^here 
the souls of good men w^ere admitted to eternal felicity. Seated 
on his throne, accompanied by Isis and Nephys, "with the four 
genii of Amenti, who stand on a lotus growing from the waters 
in the center of the divine abode, he receives an account of the 
actions of the deceased," which are weighed in the scales of 
truth. But it is in his mysterious character, as the manifesta- 
tion of the Divinity on earth, as an impersonation of Ms good- 
ness, that his pecuhar sanctity appears to have consisted. '' He 
appeared on earth to benefit mankind, and after having per- 
formed the duties he had come to fulfil, and falling a sacrifice to 
Typho, the evil principle, who was at length overcome by his 
influence, after his leaving the world he rose again to a new 
life, and became the judge of mankind in a future state. The 
dead also, after having passed their final ordeal and been 
absolved from sin, obtained in his name, which they then took, 
the blessings of eternal felicity. This very remarkable analogy 
to the office sustained by our Saviour, may induce some to 
think," says Wilkinson, " that the Egyptians, being aware of the 
promises of his coming, had anticipated the event, and intro- 
duced that mystery into their religious system." Whether this 
was the case, or whether these ideas rather arose spontaneously 
in the Egyptian mind, must remain uncertain, but the functions 
thus ascribed to Osiris may well explain the peculiar and distin- 
guishing reverence in which his fabled burial-place was held.* 

* See more fully on this subject Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, 2d Series, 
vol. i. 



"TO 

w 

8 W 

b 




OSIRIS, ISIS, AND HORUS. 



211 



His sepulcher, says Diodorus, is revered by all the priests 
throughout Egypt, and three hundred and sixty cups are filled 
daily with milk by priests expressly appointed for this purpose, 
who, calling on the names of the gods, utter a solemn lamenta- 
tion, wherefore the island can only be approached by the 
priests ; and the most solemn oath taken by the inhabitants 
of the Thebaid, is to swear by Osiris who lies buried in 
Philce. 

Associated with Osiris was Isis ; she attended upon him as 
judge of the dead, in which character she was regarded as the 
greatest of the Egyptian goddesses. Osiris, Isis, and their son, 
Horus, formed the triad worshiped at Philse. Isis was said to 
be the protector of her brother, and his royal consort or sister. 
In this quality she answered in the regions of the dead to 
Proserpine, the wife of Pluto, among the Greeks. Isis was 
metaphorically considered to be the earth, or feminine part of 
nature, or matter, in reference to the creative action of Deity. 
Horus, answering to the Greek Apollo, was the avenger of his 
father, Osiris, after his being put to death by Typhon, w^hom he 
is represented as overcoming in the form of a snake. The 
same idea also existed in the Greek, Scandinavian, and Indian 
mythology, and, like the story of Osiris, may have been de- 
rived, as Wilkinson suggests, from Bible tradition, or from some 
common conception of oriental origin, to shadow forth the 
apparent struggle between the good and evil principles which 
has so often perplexed philosophy to explain. 

Much, it must be confessed, of the beauty of the island vanishes 
when we set foot on it, from the circumstance that it has been 
covered with a town of mud-built dwelhngs at a later period, the 
ruins and foundations of which, dull and ugly, grievously dis- 
guise the natural surface, and render a peregrination both diffi- 
cult and toilsome. In this respect how different from the green 
monastic isle of Innisfallen, perhaps the loveliest retreat that 
earth can furnish ! Picking, with difficulty, our way through 
these obstructions, we reached the great temple of Isis, which 



I 21:2 VIEW FROM PHIL.E. 



I ranges along the whole of this side of the island, divided by a 
j narrow and rapid channel, across which there is a ferry, from 
I the rocky, neighboring island of Bigge. Though the gen- 
I eral style of the temple, its propylasa and courts, resemble the 
I rest of Egyptian fanes, there is considerable irregularity in the 
I form ; and Wilkinson and others call attention to " the small 
I dark rooms in the wall of the eastern Adytum, to which a stair- 
j case leads from near the front of that chamber. They have the 
appearance of being intended either for concealing the sacred 
treasures of the temple, or for some artifice connected with 
' superstition, and perhaps with the punishment of those who 
I offended the majesty of the priesthood." 

j No part of the temple of Philse presents the colossal grandeur 

of the ruins of Thebes, it is rather an elegant specimen of the 
I lighter Ptolemaic architecture, and therefore so much the better 
j adapted to harmonize with the romantic scenery of the island. 
I The specimens of capitals, composed of the leaves of the lotus 
I and other plants, are peculiarly delicate, and the vivid pres- 
I ervation of the colors adds much to their beauty. It has 
! been well observed, that Egyptian temples are more pictur- 
esque in ruin, a remark which applies particularly to a spot 
like Philce. 

The views from every part of the island are exquisitely beauti- 
ful, but none surpasses that obtained from the end of the ruined 
gallery, extending from the great propylon to the extreme point. 
This corridor, resting on the wall which surrounded the island, 
to protect it from the current, is a happy and graceful specimen 
of the lighter Egyptian architecture ; the four sides of the capitals 
present the smiling features of Isis. Attached to its extremity is 
a small obelisk directly overlooking the river, of which a broad, 
dreamy, lake-like reach comes down from the south, border- 
ed by high mountains, and fringed with a border of palm- 
groves. Sweeping around the dark, fantastic, up-piled rocks of 
Bigge, the current breaks against this end of the island, and 
peeping over the perpendicular wall which breaks its force, we 



j NUBIAN CHARACTERISTICS. 213 

i look down directly into its rapid waters, as they hurry away on 
I their impetuous course toward the cataract. 
! We moored this evening at a small Nubian village opposite 

i the island, among several other boats come down from Dongola. 
I The shore was lively with curious groups, and as night ad- 
' vanced the tranquil basin and the faintly seen temples and 
I rocks which surrounded it, were over-canopied by a sky of 
1 tropical brilliancy glittering with countless stars. It was the 

closing scene of our voyage up the Nile, and will be the last to 

fade from memory. 

It was my intention to have confined my descriptions entirely 
to the limits of my own journey, which was originally to have 
extended to the second cataract. This was however prevented 
by illness, and thus, rather than omit to notice the great temple 
I of Abusimbal, one of the most remarkable monuments of Egypt, 
I I have availed myself of the kind permission of Mr. Catherwood 
to engrave a sketch of it, drawn by him upon the spot, which I 
shall illustrate by a few brief particulars taken from other writers. 
Phila3 has ever been considered the boundary of Egypt and 
Nubia, and the characteristics of the Nile valley above the 
sacred island are totally different from those below. Lofty 
granite mountains hem in the river on both sides, leaving but a 
narrow strip of cultivable soil, the sole resource of the in- 
dustrious inhabitants, who sedulously protect it by embank- 
ments, and heighten its fertility by the most careful irrigation, 
and thus the palm-groves which line the shore, and relieve the 
sternness of the scenery, are noted for the superior quahty of 
their fruit. Yet their comparative poverty compels many of 
the Nubians to seek employment in Lower Egypt. Like all 
mountaineers, they have a singular regard for their native 
fastnesses, and until lately have ever been jealous of the visits 
of travelers, whose early visits were not made without con- 
siderable personal risk. To Burckhardt, the enterprising dis- 
coverer of Petra, we are indebted also for the first notices of 



214 



ABUSIMBAL. 



Abusimbal ; and in 1817, at the desire of Mr. Salt, then English 
consul at Cairo, Belzoni, with Captains Irby and Mangles, and 
Mr. Beechy, visited them with the view of removing the sand 
from the entrance of the great temple, which object, after much 
labor, they at length succeeded in accomplishing, while Mr. 
Hay completed the good work by clearing the doorway entirely 
to its base. 

There are several temples betwen Philae and Abusimbal, of 
more or less interest from their sculptural records, but that of 
Kalabshe is the only one that challenges attention by its archi- 
tectural beauty. It is a graceful structure of the later period 
of Egyptian art, being built in the reign of Augustus, and 
finished by his successors. Its sculptures also are very fine. 

The facade of the great temple at Abusimbal is smoothed 
perpendicularly in the face of rock overlooking the Nile. It 
is 120 feet in length and about 90 in height, surrounded with a 
molding, and adorned with a cornice and frieze. Attached to 
this fagade are several stupendous colossal statues of Rameses 
II. They are represented as seated on thrones, including 
which, their total height may be between 60 and 70 feet. This 
vastness of scale alone is calculated to produce an effect of 
sublimity, and in addition, it is admitted by almost every 
traveler, that the heads of these colossal statues are the most 
beautiful in Egypt. Others less partial to the peculiarities of 
Egyptian art, or contrasting it with the nobler style of the Gre- 
cian, declare " that you can stand within the presence of their 
mightiest w^orks of art without a particle of awe." There is 
nothing of the intellectual dignity of the Phidias of Jupiter in 
these acknowledged chef d'oeuvres of Egyptian sculpture. The 
countenance has the same heavy form, and thick lips, that uni- 
formly characterizes the rest of their creations. But, of its kind, 
it certainly is perfection itself There is a benevolent tran- 
quillity, a certain godlike serenity and superhuman gentleness, 
thrown over these massively molded features, in which, as 
Denon remarked of the Sphynx, there is something of a 



REMOVAL OF THE SAND. 215 

a negro cast, a cross, as it were, of the African with the Asiatic 
blood. Of these gigantic statues there were originally four, 
but the third from the north, having been shattered by a 
rocky avalanche descending from the mountains above, has now 
a large portion of his head in his lap. Between the legs, and 
on -either side of the colossi, are female figures of the natural 
size. 

The whole face of the temple, as high as to the very heads of 
the statues, had been, as it is supposed for a period of many 
centuries, covered up with an enormous mass of sand, which, 
blown from the desert in the rear of the rocks, had gradually 
accumulated so as to form a mountain sloping gradually down- 
ward for two or three hundred yards toward the banks of the 
Nile. The entrance was, at the period of Irby and Mangles' 
travels, entirely concealed. On arriving at Abusimbal they 
mustered a tolerably strong force, and were well armed ; to 
which circumstance, as well as to their conduct and resolution, 
they owed their safety during the stormy scenes that ensued. 
Their first step was to propitiate the local chiefs with their pres- 
ents ; one of these, however, being disappointed that his own 
was of less value than that of his brother, henceforth threw 
every possible difficulty in their way. Fifty men were hired by 
day labor to work at the removal of the sand, but they wrought 
so slowly, that it was necessary to conclude a bargain with them 
to " open the temple" for a stipulated sum. Having, however, 
obtained one half of the money in advance, they soon after re- 
fused to proceed, and the enterprising explorers were reduced 
to undertake the work themselves. This, to the astonishment 
of the natives, they persisted in, not without being inter- 
rupted and threatened in a variety of ways, until at length 
their workmen were induced to resume their spare of the ex- 
hausting labors. After laboring for a fortnight, eight hours 
in the day, under an average heat of from 112 to 116 Fahr., 
they had dug down to the top of the entrance doorway, when 
their mutinous crew endeavored to compel their departure. 



216 



INTERIOR OF THE TEMPLE. 



The whole body, armed with long sticks, pikes, swords, daggers, 
and pistols, presented themselves, declaring that they had 
waited till the last moment and must now go down the river, 
joining at the same time in savage imprecations, and scraping 
the sand in a menacing manner with their swords and hatchets. 
To this intimidating behavior the travelers opposed an attitude 
of calm and resolute remonstrance. Whilst the dispute was 
going on, their janissary had contrived to squeeze himself 
through an aperture, and to enter the temple, upon which the 
crew, finding it their best policy to be conciliatory, agreed to 
remain and assist to clear the doorway. A rough wall was 
built up on either side to catch the descending sand, and the 
persevering adventurers were enabled to explore the temple. 
The smallness of the orifice admitted so little air, that the close- 
ness was almost insupportable. Through the dim, dusky light 
thus opened, after an interval of centuries, the first glimpse into 
the interior amply repaid them for their long-continued toil. 
They found themselves in a vast hall, adorned on either side 
with an imposing range of massive square pillars, each with a 
gigantic statue 17 feet in height attached to it in front, bearing 
the same serene and noble expression as the exterior colossi. 
Through the obscurity they could perceive that the walls of this 
noble excavation were covered wdth elaborate bas-reliefs of 
battle-scenes similar to those that adorn the walls of Karnak. 
To this principal chamber succeeded a second hall of four square 
pillars, and the sanctuary, having an altar and statues, and two 
lateral apartments. Eight smaller and more irregular ones, 
opening from the sides of the Great Hall, completed this im- 
mense and magnificent excavated temple, extending 200 feet 
from the entrance. Beside this, there is another nearer to the 
river, the depth of which is about 90 feet. 

Not far above Abusimbal is Wadee Halfeh, and the second 
cataract of the Nile. A lofty cliff rising above them commands 
a striking view over the innumerable rocky islets which break 
up the current of the river into a series of rapids, which extend 



ETHIOPLV AND MERGE. 217 

for several miles. The second cataract is about 950 miles above 
the Rosetta mouth of the Nile. 

With the great rock temples of Abusimbal terminate the most 
remarkable of the monuments on the Nile. But, before closing, 
let us glance at those scattered at intervals upward toward the 
yet unexplored sources of the river. To Nubia, with its narrow 
rock-girt valley, succeeds Ethiopia, which once gave a dynasty 
of kings to Egypt; its ancient capital of Napata was near 
Djebel Barkal, where there are numerous pyramids. Passing 
the Batronda desert, we reach the island of Meroe, an alluvial 
tract inclosed between two branches of the river, where the 
rich soil and important position led to the establishment of a 
commercial community, who have left behind them a consider- 
able number of pyramids and temples. For these, far inferior in 
size and construction to those of Egypt, some had claimed an 
antiquity still greater than that of the latter, arguing therefrom 
the descent of civilization from Ethiopia and Meroe down- 
ward toward the Thebaid a»d the Delta. It has been, how- 
ever, recently ascertained by many, that the date of these struc- 
tures is comparatively quite modern, and that they are but 
copies from those of Egypt. Here we finally lose sight of all 
monumental traces of the occupation or influence of the Pha- 
raohs ; though from the figures of captives on the sculptures we 
have reason to believe, that their prowess was not unfelt by the' 
Arab and Negroid races, occupying the upper regions of the 
valley of the Nile. 

The sources of the great river seem to recede farther into the 
heart of Africa as the enterprising explorer continues to advance 
in quest of them — 'far beyond the point on the Blue Nile, 
reached by Bruce. The White Nile has been recently explored 
as far as to Lat. 4^ North by Werne, who found the papyrus, 
so long lost to Egypt, among the indigenous plants of the 
country. Lofty summits capped with snow, in Lat. 4° South, 
have been seen from a distance, by travelers from the eastern 
coast, — the probable reservoirs of the different head- waters of 

28 



218 SOURCES OF THE NILE. 

the Nile. To this mountain range attention is now turned 
with intense earnestness, — and though for a while baffled by 
local difficulties, there can be little doubt that some fortunate 
explorer will, ere long, succeed in penetrating its fastnesses, 
and of standing, with feelings that a monarch might envy 
him, over the long-hidden sources of the venerable patriarch 
of rivers. 



FINIS. 



L.. 



Slalnalilt l^ingrnpjiiB 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT, 

WITH 

REMINISCENCES OF HIS FRIENDS AND CONTEMPORARIES. 

IN TWO VOLUMES, 12mO, MUSLIN, $1 50. 

This is a work sparkling with gems of thought, and replete with interest of various kinds. OfF-hand, 
dashing sketches of eminent literary men, the friends and companions of the illustrious subject of the book 
— sketchy, admirable criticism of the works of the day, and anecdotes of different persons met with in 
the course of his career — these form the two volumes of the Autobiography, which, once taken up, will 
not, we venture to say, be laid down until the last page is reluctantly reached — Alfred B. Street. 

A delightful book; deUghtful in what relates to the author, and no less so in what relates to the men 
of letters who were his contemporaries and friends. — N. Y. Evening- Post. 

We would not be without this Autobiography of Leigh Hunt for the price of fifty such volumes. — N. Y. 
Journal of Commerce. 

We want no more entertaining reading than this Autobiography. — Newark Daily Advertiser. 

One of the most delightful books which has lately issued from the press. — Richmond Republican. 

These volumes are delightful. Hunt is certainly one of the most vivacious and agreeable of English 
writers. He well deserves every particle of the reputation he has won. — Hartford Republican. 

This work will afford much gratification and meet with many admirers. — Washington Union. 

These are a couple of racy, egotistical, gossiping volumes, abounding in picturesque descriptions of con- 
temporary events and men, and in anecdotes illustrative of the times during which Leigh Hunt was a no- 
table name. In connection with the " Life and Correspondence of Southey," and the " Life of Campbell," 
they furnish a highly interesting view of literary, political, and social life in England during the last half 
centui-y. — Southern Christian Advocate. 



►«rA/\/v/i ■^^•^^''^~" 



THE LIFE AND LETTERS 

OF 

THOMAS CAMPBELL. 

EDITED 

BY WILLIAM BEATTIE, M.D. 

WITH Ai\ INTRODUCTORY LETTER BY WASHINGTON IRVING, Esq. 

IN TWO VOLUMES, 12m0, MUSLIN, $2 50. 

A most interesting and valuable contribution to our biographical literature. It gives us the complete 
life and career of one of the sweetest minstrels of the time. Every page is full of interest, and, on its 
perusal, we feel that a full and correct likeness of the poet is in our possession. — Albany Atlas. 

In editing the life of his friend, Dr. Beattie, who was for many years his physician, has peifoi-med what 
i was evidently a labor of love. We have no hesitation in commending his volumes. — Aleth. Quart. Rev. 

These volumes are the most interesting contributions to the British classics that have appeared for 
several years. — Evening Journal. 

We have not seen a book for a long time which we welcomed with more real pleasure. We feel al- 
most as if, in pubUshing this book, the Messrs. Harper had conferred a personal favor on us. — Ttco Worlds, j 

Dr. Beattie has done the subject justice, and has made one of the most agreeable books that we have 
lately opened. — Boston Times. 

We have read the poitions of these volumes for which leisure has been given us with that especial and 
grateful interest created only by works that elevate one's conceptions of the character they exhibit. * * * 
Dr. Beattie has performed his office — to which he was invited and urged by Campbell himself— with ex- 
cellent skill and success. — Independent. 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK. 



ilnliinlih SingraiiljiB 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT, 

WITH 

REMINISCENCES OF HIS FRIENDS AMD CONTEMPORARIES. 

IN TWO VOLUMES, 12mO, MUSLIN, $1 50. 

This is a work sparkling with gems of thought, and replete with mterest of various kinds. OfF-hand, jj 

dashing sketches of eminent literary men, the friends and companions of the illustrious subject of the book l| 

— sketchy, admirable criticism of the works of the day, and anecdotes of different persons met witli in n 

the course of his career — these form the two volumes of the Autobiography, which, once taken up, will j 

j not, we venture to say, be laid down until the last page is reluctantly reached— Alfred B. Street. ! 

A delightful book; delightful in what relates to the author, and no less so in what relates to the men 
of letters who were his contemporaries and fi-iends. — N. Y. Evening Post. • 

We would not be without this Autobiography of Leigh Hunt for the price of fitty such volumes. — A^. Y. j 
[I Journal of Commerce. \ 

We want no more entertaining reading than this Autobiography. — Newark Daily Advertiser. I 

One of the most delightful books which has lately issued from the press. — Richmond Repvhlican. \ 

These volumes are delightful. Hunt is certainly one of the most vivacious and agreeable of English I 
writers. He well deserves every particle of the reputation he has won. — Hartford Republican. I 

This work will afford much gratification and meet with many admirers. — Washington Union. 

These are a couple of racy, egotistical, gossiping volumes, abounding in picturesque descriptions of con- 
temporary events and men, and in anecdotes illustrative of the times during which Leigh Hunt was a no- 
table name. In connection with the " Life and Correspondence of Southey," and the " Life of Campbell," I 
they furnish a highly interesting view of literaiy, political, and social Ufe in England during the last half | 
century. — Southern Christian Advocate. 

— — -"^y^/^^.^^^.^^^". 

THE LIFE AND LETTERS 

i THOMAS CAMPBELL, 

i 



i; EDITED 

BY WILLIAM BEATTIE, M.D. 

j! WITH AN INTRODICTORY LETTER BY WASHINGTON IRVING, Esq. 

IN TWO VOLUMES, 12m0, MUSLIN, $2 50. 

A most interesting and valuable contribution to our biographical literature. It gives us the complete 
life and career of one of the sweetest minstrels of the time. Every page is full of interest, and, on its 
perusal, we feel that a full and correct likeness of the poet is in our possession. — Albany Atlas. 

In editing the life of his friend, Dr. Beattie, who was for many years his physician, has performed what 
was evidently a labor of love. We have no hesitation in commending his volumes. — Meth. Quart. Rev. I 

These volumes are the most interesting contributions to the British classics that have appeared for !| 
several years. — Evening Journal. 

We have not seen a book for a long time which vre welcomed with more real pleasure. We feel al- 
most as if, in publishing this book, the Messrs. Harper had conferred a personal favor on us. — Tico Worlds. 

Dr. Beattie has done the subject justice, and has made one of the most agreeable books that we have 
lately opened. — Boston Times. 

We have read the portions of these volumes for which leisure has been given us with that especial and 
grateful interest created only by works that elevate one's conceptions of the character they exhibit. * * * j 
Dr. Beattie has performed his office — to which he was invited and urged by Campbell himself— with ex- j 
cellent skill and success. — Independent. 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK. 



-^^?l,.. 



/' 



